[]ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, ORATION II[]
A "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge" of Thine, O Lord of all, that, struck with amazement together with Paul, the herald of Christ, I too might cry out thus; from thence Thou hast subsequently brought us into the concord of piety, and through the exposition of the venerable and divine Scriptures, by which the right dogma has become known, Thou hast confirmed the same. This is the work of Thy wisdom, which is above us, rightly done in this age. This is the magnitude of the benefit bestowed by Thee upon us. We confess Thy mercy, as is meet. We shall eternally proclaim Thy grace before all, for which we wish indeed to offer to Thy goodness a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, but we cannot, by reason of the sheer excess of the matter, and the infirmity of our powers, which are entirely spent, is such that it is far from being able to perform this worthily. B Wherefore I, ceasing now from celebrating Thy majesty altogether, from this point forward rightly begin my prayer to Thee, the Most High; and first of all, I pray that for our most orthodox and most pious kings and emperors, through whom, as Thy most fervent and faithful ministers, Thou hast accomplished this Thy most great work, Thou might grant them brilliant victories over all enemies, especially over the impious Hagarenes, and through them grant and confer upon the whole subject people deep, lasting, and undisturbed peace in all things. After these, to the good shepherd who now spiritually presides over Thy flock, who himself also contributed significantly to the work through many struggles, and lent his aid, do Thou grant Thy grace, abundant and rich, O Dispenser of all good things, so that he may be able to lead back all who have strayed from us; C and leading us daily by Thy good Spirit—which, existing naturally as the Spirit of Thy only-begotten Son, possesses its own proper hypostasis, as befits God, from Him—guide us to the perfect fulfillment of Thy will.
ANNO DOMINI MCCLXXV
GEORGIUS METOCHITA
NOTITIA
(Cave, *De script. eccles.*, p. 615.)
Georgius Metochita, deacon of the Great Church of Constantinople, fellow-priest of Veccus, and companion in nearly all the evils suffered under the Emperor Andronicus, flourished in the year 1276. He promoted the union to be entered into with the Latins with the greatest effort; and since he could in no way be moved from this sentiment, he was frequently cast into prison. He died in exile, though in what year I have not yet discovered, though certainly surviving Veccus. His style, in the judgment of Allatius (*De consens.*, lib. 2, cap. 15, § 9), is in all respects hard, his composition rough, unadorned, and softened by no allurements; his thoughts are grave, his arguments for proving what he intended are firm, yet his elocution and choice of terms are harsh and rugged. This is from Allatius, who repeats almost the same things in his *Diatriba de Georgiis eorumque scriptis*, p. 345, and in both places he enumerates the work of Metochita, namely: *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*, a work distributed into five parts or orations; *On the Union of the Churches*; *Against Maximus Planudes, Manuel Nepotes, and Gregory Cyprius*. From these, there exists a *Refutation of the Three Chapters of Maximus Planudes*, edited by the same Allatius in Greek and Latin (*Graecia Orthodoxa*, vol. II, p. 922). *Refutation of Manuel Cretensis Nepotes*, ibid., p. 959. A sufficiently ample fragment from book V *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*, in Greek and Latin, is exhibited by the same Allatius in his book *On Purgatory*, p. 668. A fragment from the historical speech *On the Union of the Churches*, in his book *Against Hottinger*, p. 429. Two fragments from the historical speech *On the Dissension of the Churches*, ibid., p. 458, 462; another fragment from book V *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*, ibid., p. 311. A fragment of book IV *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*, dealing with the epistle of St. Maximus, was edited in Greek and Latin by Fr. Combefis (*Auctar. Nov.*, vol. II, p. 1017).
ΤΟΥ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΥ ΜΕΤΟΧΙΤΟΥ ΔΙΑΚΟΝΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΗΣ ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΑΣ ΑΝΤΙΡΡΗΣΙΣ ΤΩΝ ΤΡΙΩΝ ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΩΝ, ΩΝ ΕΞΕΘΕΤΟ ΜΑΞΙΜΟΣ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΣ Ο ΠΛΑΝΟΥΔΗΣ
GEORGII METOCHITAE, DIACONI MAGNAE ECCLESIAE, REFUTATIO TRIUM CAPITUM, A MAXIMO PLANUDE MONACHO EDITORUM.
Leone Allatio interprete.
A To an unexpected and unlooked-for interrogation brought before us, a response must be made; for although it is not proposed to us personally, yet since it strikes, without regard to any specific person, at the concord of the Churches, to which we ourselves have devoted our heart, how could it be possible for us to escape it? Wherefore, since it is arranged with those three chapters, following our custom...
A let us consider the first point as it is set forth in the text. "It must be asked whether the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is one thing and another, or one and the same. If it is one thing and another, then the procession will be double, and the Spirit double, which is plainly absurd; but if it is one and the same, by what reckoning can one emerge from an immaterial duality? For the Monad is the principle and cause not only of the duality, but also of all other numbers; but the duality could not be the principle and cause of the Monad, or of the One. For the generation of numbers is not by retrogradation, but by progression. For the Monad moves into the duality, and from there into the triad, and so on. For to say that the Monad is removed from the triad to become the duality, and in the same way the Monad from the duality—but in this case the cause of these things is the Monad that is removed, and not some other number. It remains, therefore, that the two are not the cause of the One, but the One [is the cause] of the two. And this is how it is with immaterial things, B which it is reasonable should also apply to the Divinity that transcends all matter. But in material things one is produced from two, either by union, as a child from a man and a woman, and fire from iron and stone, or by composition, as mud from water and earth. But it must be said here, first, that in the divine hypostases neither such a union is conceived, nor indeed a composition; secondly, that in this case the two do not precede the One in time, but the persons of the Trinity are coeternal, in such a way that while in the case of the many, the One is different in being from the two, and they are also different from each other in species, the hypostases of the Trinity are of the same nature; so that it is not as with material and immaterial things. Therefore, the Spirit is not from the Father and the Son." C Such is the chapter.
But we must previously discuss the term "proceeds," so that the examination may from this point become clearer, regarding what the "parent" of the matters to be examined asserts at the end of the third of the chapters: that the Holy Spirit is nowhere found in Scripture to proceed from the Son. Tarasius, therefore, the president of the universal synod which completed the seventh number, in the Tome in which the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son is also clarified along with other things—which was confirmed by the handwritten signatures of all the holy Fathers who had gathered there—confirmed this, and other divine teachers who spoke of God before him had delivered it word for word. Because of this, it is shown by theological pronouncements and by the explanations of the Fathers that those who oppose the assertion that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son D act most foolishly. Those great men, the defenders of our adversaries, having attempted to refute them in the public trials held against us in years past, took refuge in confused and perverse opinions, and in various meanings of the word "proceed," and in diverse homonymies, when they could not demonstrate what they had proposed to show; and how this was done, [we shall show] in the pages that follow.
A And in the denials of this that occur in their apologies against us, they are convicted of returning no less to their own vomit. Nevertheless, deferring for the present inquiry the response to be made from this point regarding the [notion of] "procession," since the subject matter is confirmed in many ways and by various modes through definitions [gleaned] from other sources that shine light upon them, we shall behold the true light. B "The Romans," they say, "declare that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son"; and the entire divine chorus of our holy Fathers and leaders openly and clearly proclaims that [the Spirit] also "goes forth," and "is poured out," and "appears," and "leaps forth," and [uses] other not dissimilar expressions in all their God-inspired and divinely-spoken utterances, and they imply nothing else by this than "proceeds," which they themselves ring out most clearly. C And before others, he who has a name derived from immortality, in the dialogue which he himself instituted between an Orthodox man and a Macedonian, has this: "Far be it from me to say that anything is adventitious in the Spirit. For I do not say that the holy, or the incorruptible, or the immortal, or the good, or anything else that is contemplated concerning God is adventitious to the Holy Spirit, but that by nature He is holy, by nature good, by nature incorruptible, as He who is the Spirit of God and who leaps forth, that is to say proceeds, from Him," that I may make my beginning from the first of those who shone forth in the ecumenical councils. But, lest the discourse be extended too long, omitting others, let us fix our attentive eyes upon what Cyril, inspired by the divine Spirit, says regarding the sacred Gospel passage, "The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father," D calling out—that passage whose public and continuous repetition and treading underfoot by them against us is manifest. For he declared in the sixth [book] of his sublime words *ad Hermiam*, and as a teacher he ordained: "Does the utterance brought to you come to your notice, and do you see that He has called the Spirit of truth the Paraclete? For He says that He goes forth from the Father, showing all things that are the Father's to be His own." The same [author] in the same [work] to the same [person]: "Do you understand, then, by what reasoning He who is from the Father promises to send to us as His own [Spirit], and calls Him the Spirit of truth, yet has defined Him as pouring forth from the very Father? And indeed, He has also foretold that He will bear witness concerning Him." If, therefore, Cyril, endowed with a divine mind, confirms by his own testimony that the Savior Himself said that He "goes forth" and "is poured out" by using the words "proceeds," how could anyone ever claim that the sacred mystagogue, knowing the truth of the mind, spoke of "going forth," and "being poured out," and "proceeding" as if they were one thing and another? Or rather, how would he who utters these things not be shown to be manifestly at odds with the God-wise mystagogue, and [acting] more audaciously against the Lord's own divine-voiced word according to him? Indeed, even if our opponents do not hold this, since they have not had the strength to find a way to contrive [an explanation], they hasten here to the rule of homonymy—usual for them—[drawn] from the belly, in the case of the Father where the identity and concomitant motion of the understanding are [taken] from Him [in relation] to the things discerned and the others.
A For who would dare to oppose the word that clearly declares both the Lord’s own utterance and that which is declared by God, when he himself asserts it? Nevertheless, since the adversaries could not argue that these things are not so, they retreat to their customary rule—brought forth from their own belly—of homonymy. When it is affirmed that He [the Spirit] proceeds from the Father through the word, they approve of it, as it is in agreement and harmony with the opinion already expressed and with other similar terms. But when it is said “from the Son,” they do not agree at all; and thus, in cases where it says “from the Father and the Son,” they confound them together, and enjoin that the sentiment be understood in one way [in this case] and in another way [in that]. Yet this man who ascended into heaven, and showed that the God-man Lord declares the equal force of these terms, as one who is inspired by the gifts of this same Spirit and who was also enriched by these same gifts in divine speech, and as one seeing into the future, long before provides a refutation of these erroneous thoughts B of diverse significations, while he openly and sonorously rejects one signification after another in his discourse regarding the depths. For in his discourse to Nestorius, of which the beginning is, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” he thus decides: “Although the Spirit may be in His own hypostasis, in that He is Spirit and not Son, yet He is not alien to Him. For He is named the Spirit of truth, and Christ is the truth, and He is poured forth from Him, just as indeed [He is also] from God and the Father.” And on the passage, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete,” he speaks thus: “For the Son, being a participant in the goods of God and the Father, possesses the Spirit in this same way in which the Father is understood to possess [Him].” In his interpretation of the prophet Joel on the passage, “I will pour out from my Spirit,” C he speaks thus: “For as He is God and is by nature the Son of God, He is surely begotten from God and the Father; He is His own, and in Him and from Him is the Spirit, just as indeed He is also understood to be from God and the Father Himself.” In order, therefore, to add to these words from the text some [others] gathered from the terminology, Gregory, who for his excellence is surnamed the Theologian, in his discourse to Hero the philosopher says: “For the Father, it is proper to be unbegotten; for the Son, to be begotten; for the Spirit, to be sent forth.” And in his second discourse on peace: “We so think, and we so hold, to such an extent that we concede for the Trinity alone to know how these things exist among themselves, and how they are referred and ordered, and to those whom the Trinity, having purified them, may have revealed it now or in the future. We, however, recognize one and the same nature of the divinity, which is perceived as being without principle in its generation and progress.” D That which he there called “unbegotten,” he has here clearly called “without principle.” For this also is proper to the Father, as being from no one and as being without cause, while the two [the Son and Spirit] do not possess this, as they are from Him as from a principle according to a different existence, and in regard to time, [they are] co-without-beginning with Him, and beyond all temporal expression. And the generation [of the Son] here and there, through the same expression, and what he called the “sending forth” there, he here calls the “procession”—both terms meaning, as it were, the “procession.” And in his anti-rhetorical work concerning the Spirit, he called both the “sending forth” and the “procession” an “effusion.” For he puts it thus, by way of the contrary: “What then does the Spirit lack to be the Son? For if He lacked something, then He would be the Son.” He adds: “We do not say that He lacks [anything]; for God is not deficient.” But that which is [regarding] the effusion...
A of manifestation, if I may so speak, or of the relations to one another, has made their naming different. Clearly, indeed, from the different mode of existence, which is the procession—which he here calls manifestation—the Spirit is acknowledged not to be the Son, and the difference of the names from this source becomes manifest, and the idea that they are joined as brothers, as the heretics suppose, is rejected. Whence also the Church, following all that has been said, singing melodiously, cries out: “The Father I adore, who is without beginning, and the begetting, and the procession; I glorify the Son who is begotten; I hymn the Spirit, the Holy One, who has shone forth together with the Father and the Son.”
And these things being so, with B someone not to be disregarded in theological matters deciding this regarding the words and names which are used in explaining and setting forth divine dogmas: “For we shall not contend over names, provided that the syllables express the same meaning,” the inquiry which is now in question, how does it stand, if what she [the Church] tries to gather together by the name of procession, the same things are also gathered together by the names of effusion, and progress, and emission, and manifestation? But since we are refuting in a general way, let us also examine the matter part by part. The procession which is in the question—or progress, as we say, for there is no contention regarding the opinion—of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, is simple and one, and not double, although the one questioning attempts to refute that it cannot be simple by means of the double number, taking the example of number to confirm his statement.
Nevertheless, the C mind [that is] vigilant in theological matters, when it desires to express the supra-essential Trinity as it is in itself, using an example, cries out: “Even if some similitude be found, that which is more escapes, leaving me below with the example.” Then, in succession, it sets forth the sun, the ray, and the light, the eye, the fountain, and the river, and other examples of dim similitude. And he who is gifted with a golden tongue, in his Interpretation of the Psalms, says: “The root of faith is the Father, the unfading branch is the Son, the immortal fruit is the Holy Spirit.” And others among the God-bearing Fathers [say] the same things, or others not dissimilar to these—lest I recount each one—by which the Fathers, gifted with a divine mind, express the manifestation of the Spirit from the Father through the Son, as light from the sun through the ray, as the river from the eye through the fountain, as the fruit from the root through the branch. Thus D also, one may say, from the ray, and from the branch, and from the fountain, concerning that which is expressed through the Son and from the Son, since both these prepositions have equal power according to the God-speaking [Fathers] in the natural mediation of the progress. But to the one questioning, as he does not wish to linger either on other things or on the examples from those who have gone before in piety, let it be shown that this is not his own, but belongs to the truth, as these things shine forth most clearly. For number proceeds from that which is defined by which it is naturally [produced], not from the continuous, and proceeds according to the defined singularly, not according to composition—from a monad a dyad, and from a dyad a triad not composed, but a triad from a dyad as towards the monad that is before it, the one from the monad
A that is before all things, being neither quantity nor mean nor order, since this is considered in things that are more than one, or at least in three. But as it is receptive of these three, yet still in a manner worthy of God and in concepts appropriate to God, the example of number—being of determined quantity—will be taken for the sake of illustration, according to which the Trinity is also defined by the hypostatic properties B according to the procession. For it is divided indivisibly, and it is joined dividedly, in the paradox of the divine majesty.
Remaining, pay attention, O listener, before God. The questioner, setting out as though in doubt how the one can be from an immaterial dyad, and immediately appending the cause of its being impossible—in that the monad is the cause and not the dyad—as though wishing, through the medium of the proposition that "the cause is the one and not two," to conclude C that the one is not from the two; for this was what the proposition necessarily demanded. But through the intervening arguments he rather constructs this very thing, in which he says: “A monad is moved into a dyad, and thence into a Trinity.” And what is this other than that from a monad a dyad, and from a dyad a triad, which is the one according to the determined D nature of number, as we were saying? And the celebrated man in theology agrees, saying: “For a monad, moved into a dyad, stood at the Trinity.” He concluded that the two are not the cause of the one, but the one of the two. It is, however, an inconsistent cause—and not according to the proposed problem to draw the conclusion—to think one is introducing two causes if one says the one is from the two. This is by no means the case. For the one is indeed from the dyad, that is to say, a third monad from two monads. If, therefore, it were from two things separated or divided in such a way that one was not referred to the other, nor had its being from it, nor possessed the mean according to the procession—for if it were so, the third would not be third, but a second, viewed on this side and that, and not of the succession of the proceeding order—then the argument of a duarchy and of a double cause might reasonably be introduced. But since these things are the reverse, and the third monad possesses its being through the middle monad from the first and primordial one, whence the middle monad also has its origin—thence it also draws the cause, and knows that one as principle and root, so that it is manifestly one.
Let us see, therefore, how the heralds of divine things, taking the first, the middle, and the third—that which is from both—concerning the God-governing subsistences, instruct us theologically. And first, he who declared that the monad moved into a dyad is established at the Trinity—which he who brings forward the question also appears to proclaim, in which he heroizes his exhortations to virgins—says thus: “One God was established by the Son from the Generator”; and after some words, “The Godhead remaining, perfect with one perfection.” The man of harmonious mind with him, and namesake of the Nyssaean luminary, in his discourse against the Macedonians concerning the Holy Spirit says: “For in those in whom the energy according to goodness has no decrease or change, how is it reasonable that the order according to number should have...
be thought to be a sign of any decrease or of change according to nature?” A Just as if someone, looking at the flame divided among three lamps, were to suppose the reason for the third light to be the first flame, which by communication through the middle one kindles the furthest; then he proceeds to argue that in the first flame heat abounds, but the one that follows it is changed and gradually diminished; and that the third should no longer even be called fire, although it burns and shines in like manner, and performs all the works of fire. B And the divinely-manifest Epiphanius, in the book called the *Ancoratus*, says: “The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, a third light from the Father and the Son.” The same author, in the same book: “Both dwell in the righteous man, Christ and His Spirit. But if Christ is believed to be God from God, from the Father, and the Spirit from Christ, or from both, as Christ says: ‘He who proceeds from the Father, he also shall receive of mine.’” Now the divine Cyril, explaining and clarifying these things, and designating the equivalent power of the prepositions "from" and "through" concerning the mediation of the Son, along with many other Fathers, C in the first book *To Palladius* decrees in this manner: “But the Holy Spirit is in no way mutable, or if He is subject to change, the reproach will redound to the very divine nature, if He is the Spirit of God and the Father, and indeed also of the Son, essentially poured forth from both, namely from the Father through the Son.” And when these things are thus declared, where will the claim that the one cannot be from the duality stand, being otherwise refuted by the very placing of the numbers? And what prudence will those have against whom he opposes himself, while conversely he demonstrates that to assert the one from the duality is absurd, and proceeds to fasten his own [errors] upon them? It cannot be done from the assertions we have set forth, nor will it be simply affirmed by anyone concerning numbers, that from the third and second comes the first, D and concerning the hypostases of the Deity figured by numbers, that the Father is from the Spirit and the Son. For this is what it implies, which is deduced conversely, if they are necessarily to be reduced to the definitions and propositions which are uttered in like manner. Thus they are from non-subsistent things, which are proven by the questioner. And that proposition, "from one, two," is commonly asserted by both sides; and to those indeed who say the one is from both, it possesses a firm and stable basis; for both the theologians transmit that the one is from both, that is, the Spirit from the Father through the Son, and thus from one, two, and from these through another, the other—that is, the Spirit from the Father through the Son—dogmatizing according to the distinction of the persons of the divine; and that which was defined for the representation of number has not fallen away. But those others who strengthen that which is of common agreement, "from one, two," how can they possess that which consists according to division in the case of their own image and the hyperessential triadic persons being imaged, and not rather that which is according to composition, admitting neither "from the Son" nor "through the Son"? But in order that both even from the one from the divine writing of the Fathers, being thus, as we have said, confirmed
and established; for both have handed down—divinely speaking—that it is "from both" one, namely the Spirit from the Father through the Son, and thus from one two, and one of these through the other, namely from the Father through the Son, as Spirits, deciding according to the division of the divine persons; and thus what is prescribed in the likeness of number is not admitted. But those who maintain that "from the one, two"—which is a confession among all—how will they be able to confirm that according to the distinction of its proper image, and those of which it is the image, in the three supersubstantial persons, and not rather according to composition, neither accepting that from the Son, nor that through the Son? But that "from the one, two," in the divine writings of the Fathers, may have its firmness, as we have said, since it is disseminated everywhere in their divine writings, the divine pastor of the Nyssaeans A confirmed it to Ablabius, thus deciding: "Confessing the nature to be immutable and in all things alike, we do not deny the distinction of cause and effect, in which alone we find one to be separated from the other, when we believe this indeed to be the cause,"—signifying the Father—"and that which is from the cause, namely the two persons of the Son and the Spirit from the one Father: then, withdrawing one from the other, we comprehend again another distinction of that which is from the cause;" and again, according to the resumption, he says: "from the one, afterwards the difference. For this is indeed immediately from the first; this, however, from that which is adjacent to the first, the Spirit, namely, through the Son from the first." And it follows: "So that the Only-begotten remains indubitable in the Son, and that the Spirit is from the Father, the mediation of the Son preserving to itself the Only-begotten, and not keeping the Spirit from the natural relation to the Father." If, therefore, these things are clear, and the divinely-speakers very manifestly teach clearly "the one from both," and "both from the one," and proclaim it broadly in their divine utterances, and B declaring and decreeing the same meaning and thought, what is the profit and what is the utility, to wish to show these things to be mutually repugnant by belly-born sophistries, and through one to destroy the other, and to oppose the established patristic thoughts and the established patristic decrees, when the great-named Basil teaches to Amphilochius: "For the voice 'through the Son' contains the confession of the original cause," and the Theologian who lived with him in one mind, and held the same in all things, cries out: "If even to the first cause, which is that of the Only-begotten, and those that are of the Spirit, they are referred;" in order that I may lightly touch upon the refutation of those who attempt to introduce the absurdity of two principles, from those things which the defenders of piety have handed down? But when the questioning is made by a dilemma, it is refuted on one side in this manner for the proof of the simple, and the refutation of those things which could be objected to them is seen to be rashly adduced. And thus the statements of this double interrogation are overturned on both sides: for such are the conjugations of opposites. He who C introduced the sun has dissipated the darkness; and he who proved the simple has sent away the double. But let us be satisfied with one of the examples from these things for putting away the duality, leaving aside very many other words and thoughts that are available to us, implanted in the manifestations of the sacred preachers: [let us be satisfied with] that of the sun, the ray, and the light. For these, taking these things for a dim likeness of the divine substances—as from the sun and the ray, or rather from the illuminated disk through the ray, they manifest the light, or rather the brightness, as simple; for what is the duality of this? So also, theologizing the Spirit from both—or rather from the Father through the Son—they represent Him as superior to all duality. And truly, the simplicity of the supersubstantial Trinity is beyond all simplicity, D just as the indivisibility is beyond all
B indivisibility. For just as the Father is neither divisible nor composite because He begets the Son and puts forth the Spirit—even if the begetting and the putting forth are contemplated as distinct from one another, yet the procession from both is one and the same, because these are not parts but properties, and the procession of each is not discerned by any kind of division—so too the Spirit is neither divisible nor composite because He is from the Father and the Son, and does not have one part from the Father and another from the Son, but is simple, just as that which is from the Father is also from the Son, from simple [beings], or rather from a simple [source] through a simple [medium], and from undivided [sources] an undivided [being], and from consubstantial [ones], a consubstantial [being]. Those, therefore, who declare that both [proceed] from one, and that the One is from both—as we have it supported by patristic utterances and established by their examples—are not only supported by the example immediately posited, as I shall say more concerning the One, for instance, [the example of] the drawing [of light], but also by that of the root, the branch, and the fruit. For the fruit [comes] from the root through the branch, but it is also not forbidden to say [that it comes] from the branch. Whence also [it is] from both, clearly from the root through the branch. Likewise also [is the case of] the eye, the fountain, and the river. But those who oppose the [doctrine of the procession] from both, carrying themselves toward their own preferred conclusions—using words and concepts born of their own bellies, not by testimonies delivered in writing—so too with regard to those things which are set forth by the sayings of the Fathers as images of the supreme Trinity, not applying their minds, they introduce of their own accord the offspring of man and woman from a passionate union, and the generation of fire from the violent friction of things of another nature and essence joined together among themselves, and the composition of clay from things of different nature in a similar way C from their own [concoctions], as if demonstrating that these adversaries assume similar things for the likeness of the procession of the Spirit from both. And such things, while they are by no means to be admitted, those who prove their own aim [by them] seem to themselves to accomplish what they intend—things which not only to utter by voice or deliver in writing, but even merely to agitate in the mind, the demons themselves have shuddered at. The vigilant mind, however, the summit of theology, showing the Trinity constituted above all infinity by certain likenesses, testifies with a great voice that «the shallowness of likenesses is indicated» and, what is more, «flees» and «decrees that it remains below us along with the example,» even if the things [compared] are of the same nature and essence among themselves D and clearly signify the inseparability of the thearchic Persons from each other, and the impassibility of the procession and the manifestation, even if [they do] not [signify] the distinct hypostatic property of the three. For in the hypostasis of the illuminated disk, the ray and the light are naturally subsistent, and not separately hypostatic by themselves; from the eye, the fountain, and the river, the joined and inseparable [nature] is signified, even if each of these is distinguished by place and by position, having its own place and its own limitation, and thus the continuous [and] undivided [nature] is signified. From the root, the branch, and the fruit, the distinction of the hypostases [is shown], even if time intervenes between them, and [if] the power and energy in the root is greater than in the branch and the fruit. Yet in the venerable Trinity...
one and the same power and action, the distinction of persons from unity, and duality, and trinity, is considered, although not by itself, nor in its own hypostasis, but only in intellect and in others: which example of the questioner, although not as it pleases him, must be assumed, unless through another and different similitude, one thing and another of those which we contemplate in the consubstantial Trinity, or the same thing, is signified through many. For it cannot happen that the thing likened in all modes equals that which it likens, as the one who is the name of theology relates in the same discourse. Nevertheless, through all these and other similar things, both the order, and the relation, and the first, and the middle, and the third are indicated; and that there are not two causes, since it is clearly defined that the ray and the light are seen from the sun, when both things said imply this: from the first, through the middle, the third; and thence they declare that one and primary cause holds the first [place], as also from the root, the one containing in itself the cause, and from it two, the middle, and through that the third [referring] back to it, as if they were referred to their own proper root; and in number, from unity [comes] two, and from two the third by segregation, not by composition, namely from the first unity the second, and through it the third, C as both are middle, and through the third itself they are referred back to the first unity as to the primary cause and root. Whence the most theological Nyssen, clearing up these things concerning the uncreated Trinity, and having said, as we noted above, both of that which is from the cause, and signifying both as caused, if those things which are from a cause are to be called caused, he signified one thing through another, writing: "For the one is proximately from the first, the Son indeed, that is, immediately; for both these things are broadly contained in the holy writings of the Fathers concerning him; the other, however, through the middle, is proximately from the first, the divine Spirit, and thence both, of whom one [comes] immediately, the other through the middle," having theologized one primary cause, which the other god-speaking Fathers called the first cause conjunctively, but he, separatively. Who, moreover, of the prepositions "from" and "through," as they are applied with the middle to one and the same concord, and equal powers, as the testimonies of the divine Fathers handed down broadly in the sacred writings, although D slightly...
obscurely he stated it here by way of addition, yet in other places he has usurped it, when he says: “The Son indeed is said by divine Scripture to be from the Father. But the Spirit is said to be from the Father, and is argued to be from the Son.” And we have seen that the first chapter stands thus; now the second must be considered, explained in these very words: B “Furthermore, the unity A of identity is the cause, duality of diversity. Hence the Son and the Holy Spirit, as existing from one Father, possess between themselves the same nature as the Father; but as they are two, they are again other between themselves, and also from the Father, but according to hypostases, not according to nature; for it could not be that things which are of the same nature could be again of a diverse nature. If therefore the Spirit proceeds from one, that is, the Father alone, He will be one and the same with Himself; but if from two, that is, from the Father and the Son, He will be other than Himself, inasmuch as He who is from the Father is one thing, and He who is from the Son another. For since the Father is one, and the Son another, it is necessary that the Spirit who is from the Father and the Son should also be one thing and another. But this is absurd. And if anyone should say, How is it that a fetus born from one and a different father and mother is not one thing and another, but one? We reply that it is not absolutely one, but is a composite, from the semen of the father and the bloods of the mother.”
Here too the things proposed are detected in a manifest way as falsehood, so far are they from being true. Let it be noted. For when through those words the author had pronounced that the unity of identity is the cause, and the duality of diversity is the cause, and had proved that the Son and the Holy Spirit, because they exist from one Father, possess the same nature between themselves and with the Father, but as they are two again, they are other between themselves and with the Father according to hypostases: then next he had also added the solution for that which could be opposed: “But not according to nature: for it could not be that things which are of the same nature were again of a diverse nature,” he openly demonstrates that by this division he affirms that unity is in no way the cause of diversity. But this is the destruction of the foundation of the universal faith. For that certain and indubitable opinion of the Church and the princes of the doctrine which is the foundation of piety is, that there are three things which are worshipped, of which one, namely the Father, does not derive His existence or subsistence from anyone, but is without cause; and that from His same essence two others subsist, but by a different mode of procession. For insofar as它们 are from His essence, they possess identity of essence between themselves and with the Father, but according to the difference C of procession they possess their diversities. For from this is established the unbegotten and uncaused nature of the Father, and the generation of the Son from Him, and the production of the Spirit, by which the properties of the hypostases and the diversity of the three are recognized. If therefore they are two from one, and with Him, and between themselves, and they are separated both as one and another from Him and between themselves, within what certain firmness and foundation of dogmas will that statement, “The unity of identity is the cause, the duality of duality of diversity,” stand?
But the upright knower of truth clearly recognizes the falsehood by which, even from the sole utterance of the words, one discovers and exposes it from his own discourse. For D the Father has said of this, that “the unity is the cause of identity, but the duality of diversity,” from the deduction he immediately established the identity of nature between themselves for the two, in that they are from the one, and by the one itself; but as the Son and the Spirit are two, he showed the diversity of one another according to the hypostases, and from the one from whom these are, namely the Father; but he also compelled himself, from that point, to confess the identity of nature for the three. Therefore, that of the duality and both the same and the other, as the nearby confession clarifies, the unity speaking of the same, and uttered up to this point, will also have this according to the hypostases and not at all the other, as the property of that which is of division, and the blasphemous part…
A of falsehood is thus uncovered, as the identity and the difference of both the monad and the dyad are demonstrated. How could he not be worthy of admiration—he who, among those who are so well-versed in logical sciences, draws the conclusion of his investigation from such premises? Nevertheless, hereafter, repeating the division proposed in this way, he says: "If, therefore, the Spirit proceeds from one, that is to say from the Father, he will also be identical with himself." He reserves the "other" for that which is from the two, interpreting as he wishes from the beginning—against whom the inclination of this speaking B is directed. Yet the true opinion, initiating us into the mystery of the Spirit proceeding from the Father, proclaims that the Spirit has both the identity with respect to the Father and the "otherness" from Him, and yet it also proclaims the identity of the Father and the Son, declaring the sameness with respect to both and the difference with respect to the Father. For He himself is not a begetter, nor yet a begotten one. But he who stands apart from these—introducing, if the Spirit were said to be from the two, that He is other than Himself, and devising compositions for this reason, as if He were one thing from the Father and another from the Son—how is he not innovating with what he utters? For if the Father, being unbegotten, is begetter and producer—of the Son in one way, of the Spirit in another—and is the begetter of the Son, not the producer, and the producer of the Spirit, not the begetter, the Father is Himself other than Himself, and hence composed. And yet the procession of the Spirit from both is one and the same, C though the generative and productive faculties of the Father are different and different. But just as the Father is not divisible on account of this, nor yet composed, because these are not parts of the Godhead, nor is it a composition—for the Godhead is simple, above every simplicity, and indivisible, above every indivisibility, but these are properties considered around it—so too does the procession of the Spirit from both not alienate Him from His identity, nor does it present Him as composed, but He is from the Father and the Son; or rather, it is from the Father through the Son: simple from simples, that is to say, from the Simple through the Simple, according to the God-minded. But in order that we may also refute the example from the impassioned [experience] of two which establishes a composition, so that it might be overturned that the Spirit is from both, and it might be abolished, and that which is D condemned as coming from his unexamined utterance—from among those things handed down to us by the God-bearers for the depiction of the pre-luminous Trinity—we shall instead set forth the more perfect one of the sun, compelling us toward this again, as he is turned by his tongue and his mind toward the same compositions. From the sun and its ray, the light becomes clear, even to those who do not know it, that is, the radiance from the sun through the ray. And where is there any doubling in this? Where is there composition? Because not even the things from which it is composed see a doubling or a composition—neither the light in the ray, nor that in the disc, and the simplicity is not more in the one than in the two. And where is the being from both a composition? And yet the simplicity in the instance of the super-essential Trinity—which is depicted—has an incomparably greater pre-eminence than that which is considered in the Trinity that depicts it. As therefore from one, so from both the Spirit is theologized as a double…
A transcendence. And yet, this resemblance, in so far as and such as this small comparison presents according to him who handed it down, first establishes the impassibility of the procession of the divine hypostases; then that the Father is light, the Son is light, the Holy Spirit is light—the triadic, light and undivided—as light is in the solar disk, light is the ray, light is the illumination from them: the singular and indivisible nature of the God-ruling essence, and that which distinguishes the manifestation according to the order of the persons. Just as the sun itself, the ray, and the light are shown to be set in, as being complements of one essence, and distinguished according to the light being from the sun through the ray, the interconnection and the inseparable co-existence of the God-ruling hypostases. For the Father is not without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit; for the Son did not ever fail the Father, nor the Spirit the Son, just as the sun is not without the ray, nor the ray without the illumination. And by way of example, the account concerning the light-giving Trinity is depicted in this way to the God-speakers. Since, however, these men in many places and very frequently in their God-wise theologies dogmatize the Holy Spirit conjointly from the essence of the Father and of the Son, and again separately from the essence of the Father, and from the essence of the Son—and B the divine Cyril in the second of the *Treasures* composes a discourse whose inscription is: "That the Holy Spirit is from the essence of the Father and of the Son"—and the anchor of right dogmas, the great Epiphanius in the *Ancoratus* says: "The Spirit from the same essence of the Father and of the Son," and subsequently adds: "For the Only-Begotten himself says, The Spirit of the Father, and who proceedeth from the Father; and, He shall take of mine." And from this he clearly shows from the construction of the same thought, the "proceeding from the Father" and the "He shall take of mine." What will those say who claim that such things follow C if the Spirit were said to be from two? Will they say that what is from the same essence of both is something other than itself? Or, being ashamed to say that what is from the same essence is something other than itself, and having conceded that the same thing exists, and that it is not another from both, will they choose the very thing brought against them for the refutation of this, namely, that which is composite from the passionate mingling of each one, since it is a necessity from what is proposed and established for them? But wherever they are driven to be led away on either side, whichever they may choose, it is manifest—and may you be merciful, Lord. For we do not say these things, but those who are the calumniators of your truth. But the thing excluded besides these—that it is from the Father D alone—has been inscribed here in letters, having obtained such a triumph that it is in no way, no how, found in the scriptural dogmas and traditions anywhere. Those who were eager to establish this, at the first stirring of the ecclesiastical matter, handed it over with a strange, novel writing, and having been caught, they revealed and confessed the nature of the contrivance. This, indeed, in this way of the tr—
tri- A umph of the divine outpourings is known to those who understand. Yet the pair of God-bearing men of the same name, the one of whom shone forth as the luminary of the Neocaesareans, and the other of the Nyssaeans, clearly explains the Son’s being from the Father alone. For the one who is called Thaumaturgus by his name was initiated into the true faith by divine vision through the Theologian who reclined upon the breast of the Lord, and through the mediation of the Theotokos; and the other, the Nyssaean of the same name, writing the life of his namesake—which is appointed to be read in the Church annually—recounts the matters of the vision and sets forth the revealed faith, in which, after it has been set forth, there is included: “One God, Father of the living Word,” and everything that follows regarding the Father, and “One Lord, alone from the Alone, God from God, Word without beginning.” And after some things, “The Son, the truth of the true Father.”
B The same Nyssaean, in his homily on the Lord’s Prayer, says: “For the only-begotten Word is named by the divine Scripture as being from the Father; and up to this point the discourse establishes his distinct property. But the Holy Spirit is said to be from the Father, and is further witnessed to be from the Son. For if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” Consequently, the Spirit is the Spirit of God and Christ; but the Son, being from God, is neither mentioned as being from the Spirit, nor is he, nor does this relative sequence reverse itself. Therefore, the phrase there, “Alone from the Alone,” this is what he means here by, “up to this point the discourse establishes his distinct property,” namely, that he exists from the Father alone. And it is even more evident from the continuation that he adds, saying, “But the Holy Spirit is said to be from the Father, and is further witnessed to be from the Son,” that is, from both.
Thus, when the second chapter has been examined, let us now examine the third, tracing it line by line: “Furthermore, if those who are refuted say that one ought not to confess anything beyond what is contained in the divine Scripture, and they answer that the Fathers placed the term ‘consubstantial’ in the Creed, even though it is not found in the divine Scripture, we say that if it had not been said there, there was a danger that the Son would be considered less than the Father. Although even if that exact word is not in the Scripture, C the phrase, ‘I and the Father are one’ is equivalent to it. But here, what necessity is there to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, when it is not found in the divine Scripture? What does the theology handed down risk because of this? Certainly nothing. Rather, from this very addition, many absurdities arise, such as the two-principle theory, the notion that the Spirit is composite, and ten thousand other things.”
First, regarding what he says about not having to confess anything beyond what is in the divine Scripture, if they answer that the Fathers included the term “consubstantial” in the Creed, though it is not found in the divine Scripture—I know of some before our time who, moved by their own spontaneity, engaged in a struggle for the peace of the Churches. For some of them have been found to be thus disposed, and especially regarding this word “consubstantial,” so much discussed, in the aforementioned...
A understanding of the mind for the establishment of the intended goal, nor did any of ours, having brought in from anywhere our own words, against whom the climax of wickedness has been investigated. For how could there be, with ten thousand B things set forth directly, of those who have shone forth in the theology of all the divine Scriptures regarding the Father and the Son, and of those who clarify the Holy Spirit as being “from the Son” and “through the Son”? But if they take the word “proceeds” as an opposition, they manifestly avert this—both the utterance of Epiphanius, that heavenly-minded man, set forth immediately, which presents the same and no other thing in meaning—the “proceeding from the Father” and “he shall receive of mine”—and also the remainder of the words of the divinely-inspired ones that have been distinguished in the consideration of the first chapter, and which, being clarified by different expressions in the things expressed from the Father and the Son, show the same thing for the gathering of clarity. And those who bear witness to God the Word Himself in the divine Gospel proceed to say, and it is poured forth, to which he has spoken: “proceeds”; and finally, those which we, in these matters—whose syllables carry the same meaning—have brought forward, being content not to strive over words, as we are persuaded by those who are god-bearing. But those who have chosen to strive over words in these matters are seen to be disobedient to them, and manifestly standing against them. Then, that also must be observed: that the author of this chapter, having confessed that the Fathers handed down the “consubstantial” based on the same meaning of the words of divine Scripture, and that they handed it down as removing the danger from the Arian storm, and the things of Scripture and from Scripture, from which the extent of our construction is manifest. Then he also brings in the things “from the belly”: “And here what is the necessity?” and the things that follow. C For indeed, having many things to say against them, such as the danger of wickedness, and the very theology “from the Son” and “through the Son,” the same Fathers—and those who subsequently shone forth in the ecumenical councils—are clearly mirrored as casting them away; I am hindered from saying this briefly, though I intended to. Although I do not miss the intention even so, being drawn by necessity to set some things forth from the exceedingly numerous matters of the question for each point, and from there to be broadened in any way, nevertheless, from the things [concerning the name] of the divine Father that were apprehended nearby, or of some who were established according to him—even for the word placed close by, he thus places it completely: “The Holy Spirit is not a co-brother, nor a father-brother, but from the same essence as the Father D and the Son,” and thereafter as it has been laid out. For when the Pneumatomachi were hastening to declare that the Holy Spirit is a creature, and were saying, “If both are from the Father, then they are two brothers and two Sons, and how then is He the Only-Begotten?” the divine mystagogue says, as it were: “Thus both are from the Father, in such a way that the one is also from the other.” And for the construction of this, he takes up the duplicity of the Gospel utterances from the god-voiced Lord’s own word, the one saying, “He proceeds from the Father,” and the one, “He shall receive of mine,” presenting the same meaning for each, and the co-brother, and
A from there slaps away, and establishes the Only-Begotten, and openly proclaims the one from both. And therefore, after some things, he adds, saying: “But someone will say: Do we then say there are two Sons, and how is he the Only-Begotten? But who are you who argue against God? For if he calls the Son the one from him, but the Holy Spirit the one from both.” And the divine hierarch of Nyssa teaches the same things, in which he dogmatizes the Son directly from the first and the cause, but the Spirit through the directly—through the Son, clearly—adding thereafter: “So that the Only-Begotten may remain indubitably in the Son, and that the Spirit is from the Father may not be doubted, the mediation of the Son both preserving the Only-Begotten for itself, and not hindering the Spirit from the relation to the Father.” B If these things have secured certainty, where will the standing exist according to the bulwarks of piety? And that which is equal in weight to them—to say the consubstantial was set [in place to] destroy the danger of the Son being called less than the Father, and here to bring in no danger—there is present the absence of the theology of “from the Son” and “through the Son,” from which things arise, and rather, ten thousand absurdities emerge. If, just as there the consubstantial was spoken by the Fathers for the repelling of those blaspheming against the Son, so here “from the Son and through the Son” was theologized by the God-bearers for the destruction of the prattling of those blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Where, then, is the “from the Father only” a new legislation, and not rather a confrontation against the divine teachers? But also, regarding this very thing—that the theology of “from the Son” being rejected C is in no way harmful, while some say that the holy ones were forced [to accept it] in the same category for the slapping away of heresies, and that it is necessary to pass by it and not hold onto it—our second Apology at the appropriate time regarding this matter, and now also in another chapter, its neglect and the rejection of those heresies which are rejected through it, is it not of necessity a complete innovation, and a full declaration, as to how it agrees with the simplicity of the truth, which is not known to all? But regarding the composite and that of the diarchy, which he also weaves into this head, and subsequently what he says, “ten thousand absurdities follow” by way of omission—since against those things that have been devised before, it is strained against the Fathers, who dogmatize in their mind the same and not another: “He proceeds from the Father,” and, “He shall receive of mine,” and as many things as we have distinguished purely above regarding the same theology, and for which we have defended ourselves out of them as far as is possible, we are satisfied with these same things; and even if ten thousand [more] were devised, out of them the defense will be.
cinnata erant, dirigantur, qui idem nec aliud tum illud ‹ex Patre procedere›, tum illud ‹de meo accipiet›, significare decernunt, et ea quæ ejusdem theologiæ supra aperte complexi sumus, nos ex eorundem sanctorum penu, uti fieri potuit, respondimus, ideoque his ipsis acquiescimus, et licet isti infinite alternatis vicibus innumera commenti fuerint, ex his paratissime respondebitur.
OF THE SAME GEORGE THE DEACON METOCHITA. REFUTATION OF THOSE THINGS WHICH MANUEL THE NEPHEW OF THE CRETAN WROTE.
A That command divinely uttered, which authorizes A searching the Scriptures, presents as indispensable A a boldness in speech, not only in many doctrines concerning God, but even more so in all these and other ecclesiastical questions; nor is it less – or perhaps all the more – the case in those discourses regarding the Divine, and others which bring difficulty and ambiguity in this present discord of both Churches, which from the beginning held the primacy of all in the world everywhere, after the saving proclamation was published and accepted. Our own people, however, at this time, attacking with such immoderation in this controversy against the Romans, I know not by what reasoning steer away from a similar investigation commanded by God, and—what is worse—from the very first onset pervert the divine Scriptures. Some B of them, who sit in the primary place and are hemmed in by a great dominance of various homonyms and by the confusion of their own notions, have attempted to disturb and thrust aside the pure and integral meaning of the divinely inspired words of the Fathers, which clearly insinuate concord to those who are divided; others now, by changes to the divine oracles, by the removal of words, now by corruptions, by addition, and now even by the entire fabrication of expressions contrived for their own purposes, have been eager to overthrow them completely. Our treatises therefore deal with these matters more perfectly, and uncover the light of truth. And for those so affected, and especially for those who have shone forth in eminence of dignity, it should have been sufficient, after they had afflicted us with various torments and noted against us the various proscriptions described in the codex, that the things which were written by us while surrounded by chains and guards to refute them—so that in the future, whether in discussions or in writings...
A or any other kind of exposition, they might renounce their replies, and that by more severe and safer guards our cause might be firmly established, and they might confess their own error in the divine words. These things are sufficient for the refutation of their senseless madness and for the demonstration of their fall from the right path, even if the favor of those in power, the impetus of the multitude, and the propensity of those who are preoccupied with wickedness presume to pass them by and hide them in darkness.
Having carried these things out, those men—incomparable in their power of speech and in the rest of their haughty pride—and those who followed them in the same sect, published writings against the matter now before us for common condemnation, and they took pains that these should not be known to us but should lie hidden in secret places, in the same way that B their leaders had done. But since whole decades of years have passed since the time that the contrary writings of those who succeeded them appeared, and we have been able to obtain them, we considered it necessary to evaluate whether they truly accord with the Lord’s commandment to search the Scriptures. And since other things have preceded this, it is our intention to examine these second writings which are in our hands, in which the writer composes a dialogue, as it appears, with a man who thinks along with the Roman Church, first indeed setting forth principles and C questions taken from the opinion of both, and not from Scripture, but afterwards concluding and presenting the force and sum of his arguments from the same, as it seems to him. Since, therefore, it is necessary for us to adhere to the divine oracles in all places—in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, in questions, in dialogues, in refutations, and in whatever other expositions there may be—and especially when those who foster the discord already brought in propose that the disapproval of the divine oracles was the cause, we should neglect the problematic arguments coming from outside, as they are entirely D disconnected from decorum. Those, however, which this champion of discord brings forward from the sacred oracles are to be examined, as far as is possible, and I shall make the beginning from where he speaks literally as follows:
2. "Someone sends a servant, or a son, or something else, receiving it from another or having it from himself; and the rays of the sun send light to us, having it, of course, from the sun. But in divine matters, the good pleasure of the Father, as the great Gregory writes, is called the mission of the Son. For he says: 'If it is as God, what will this be? Consider the good pleasure of the Father to be the mission, and the good pleasure of the Son, of course, is called the mission of the Spirit.' But someone will say: 'Why is the Son not also said to be sent by the Spirit?' And yet this is found in Isaiah. For he says as if from the person of the Son: 'I, the Lord, in due time will gather them.' 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted.' But if someone says that this was said on account of the flesh, he does not seem to speak safely. For that 'I, the Lord,' is proper to the deity, or at least common to both, and
A to heal the sicknesses of souls belongs entirely to God alone.'
Enumerating here the missions, he confesses that the mission in the divinity is [by] good pleasure, which he who is named for theology—refuting those not acknowledging the divinity of the Son, who from this sought to demonstrate that He is a creature—teaches concerning the Son. For having set forth the good pleasure, he rejects the mission which is considered to be one by command, servile and fitted to creatures, B openly proclaiming that, since the Son exists as the offspring of the essence of the Father, He proceeds from Him, and is given by Him according to good pleasure, and is sent, as something akin and not external. Just as also the Holy Spirit, existing from the essence of the Father, but in a different mode of existence, is both given by Him, and supplied, and sent.
The mission, therefore, and the giving and the supplying, do not signify the eternal and timeless existence of the Son and Spirit from the Father in themselves to us, since these are also those things which are subject to time—for the Father is proclaimed in the divine Scriptures to have sent and given unto us His only-begotten Son—nevertheless, as following upon that beginningless and eternal existence, they express the same, that which is without time, those which are subject to time according to the demonstrative proofs. C For why is there a mission and a giving of the Son and of the Spirit from the Father? Because the existence of both is from Him, and not the reverse. By no means. There is no giving, no mission from the Son of the Father, nor from the Spirit; because neither is the existence [from them].
If, therefore, he who strives to confirm his own purpose from the mission confesses, saying, 'And the good pleasure of the Son, clearly, is called the mission of the Spirit,' how will he proceed successfully in his subsequent words? For if, as from the essence of the Father, so also from the essence of the Son the Spirit is theologically defined by the divinely-spoken ones as [proceeding] properly and unitedly, then by all means the account of the mission, and of the giving, and of the supplying of the Spirit from the Son will be the same as that which is asserted from the Father; D and as these [missions] are from Him, so also from the Son—not signifying by themselves that the Holy Spirit is without time and eternal, but as following upon His natural and supra-temporal existence, they are representative of this.
And that the Spirit is also sent and given by the Son as being from Him, the summits of divine worship both clearly declared, of whom the one, the namesake of immortality, in the discourse concerning the manifestation in the flesh of God the Word, the beginning of which is 'Those who maliciously wish to understand the divine Scriptures,' speaking thus about the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove: 'And let no one suppose that He was receiving it as not having it. For He Himself was sending it from above as God, and He Himself was receiving it from below as man. From Him, therefore, it descended into Him, from His divinity into His humanity.'
The one gifted with a golden voice in divine exposition, in the discourse on the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the beginning of which is 'Truly the grace of God has appeared to us,' says: 'Christ came to us, He gave to us the Spirit which is from Him, and He took up our
A human flesh." And these are the views of the God-minded. But those who have now entered more deeply into the depths of theology, while proclaiming that the Spirit is sent, and supplied, and given by the Son, pronounce with weightiness and audacity that He is not from Him, but from the Father alone. He, however, having confessed that a mission existing in such a way is well-pleasing, now most recently—for we have not heard similar things before—in order to destroy that "from whom," declares that the Son is also sent by the Spirit, putting forward the utterance of Isaiah, the most loud-voiced among the prophets, as if it were stated from the person of the Son: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me; He hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor."
B 3. Then, refuting the one who says that this was spoken because of the flesh, and proclaiming that he does not speak securely, he joins absurdity to absurdity and establishes one thing by means of another. For, citing the words, "I the Lord," he says: "This is proper to the Deity, or at any rate to both." If, therefore, as he himself determines in this place, the voices of divine Scripture concerning the deity of the Son, which speak and treat of the Word of God and man, are to be taken entirely according to the deity, and in no way according to the humanity and the flesh, they will cry out loudly and will establish those who attribute the passion to the deity, since the Church very often in her sacred canticles openly sings of the Jews who were guilty of deicide, and further chants: "When the blood flowing from God was poured out, O Lord Christ." If, therefore, C such utterances are to be understood in this way, what argument would restrain such a blasphemy of the Theopaschites? But in no way do they allow either the word "Lord" or "God" in such instances to be understood and taken concerning Him according to His deity; rather, it is understood and taken according to the passion in the flesh. And if someone should say that the hymn, in which it is contained that the blood poured out from God refers to Christ, immediately thereafter suggests: "From Thy immaculate and life-viving side," he will rather confirm our words, so far is he from destroying them, since these things suggest this by reason of the corporeal composition and in another way. But if, desiring to undertake the defense of an opposing argument—for what else will he set forth in place of that?—he should say that in the words, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath D anointed me, and hath sent me," the reason of the cause was not appended, but the saying was uttered absolutely, he will be able to do so rightly, provided that he thoroughly embraces the Lord’s precept to search the Scriptures in the greater part, or rather in all matters in which the slaughter of the Lord and God committed by impious and reckless men is proposed; that in no place is the stated cause explained, nor is the sentiment of an orthodox writer insinuated in any other way than this. Therefore, to corroborate what is thus proposed and accepted, one taken into the midst will suffice: Cosmas, the ornament of the Church and adorned by God, who, in the hymns on the saving passion composed by him, while among them he arranged one for singing in this way: "A cohort of those who hate God, a congregation of the wicked, of those who committed deicide, stood against Thee, O Christ, and as if a criminal, drew..."
A to Himself the Creator of all things, whom we magnify. These things are according to the mode which is called reciprocity: "This God is recent. This child created the ages," B since, on account of the consummate union in the hypostasis, those things which belong to the humanity are asserted of the divinity, and vice versa. Yet they are understood and accepted appropriately and fitly in both natures of the Son. Wherefore then does he, who declares the voice of the Lord to be a universal proposition not spoken according to the human nature, as if it were proper to the divinity, steer and carry it away? Let his fellow-assemblers and like-minded peers understand. That the anointing and the mission contained in the prophetic saying set before us are uttered by the Lord according to the flesh, and not only this, but that the giving and mission of the Spirit C from the Lord are to be understood according to the divinity, the great trumpet of the Church and doctor of great name, Athanasius, would demonstrate, handing down similar things in his first discourse against the Arians: "What is wonderful, or what is incredible, if the Lord who gives the Spirit is said now Himself to be anointed by the Spirit? Where, when occasion again requires, He did not shrink from saying of Himself, on account of His humanity, that He was less than the Spirit? For when the Jews said that He casts out demons by Beelzebub, He answered and said to them, after having refuted their blasphemies: 'If I in the Spirit of God cast out demons.' For behold, now the Giver of the Spirit says that He casts out demons in the Spirit." This, however, is said solely on account of the flesh. For when human nature is in no way able of itself to cast out demons, unless by the power of the most holy Spirit, therefore, as man, He said: "If I in the Spirit of God cast out demons." Nor did He otherwise indicate that blasphemy against the holy Spirit is greater than that against His humanity, saying: "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, he shall have forgiveness," such as were those saying: "Is not this the carpenter’s son?" But those who blaspheme against the holy Spirit, and ascribe the works of the Word to the devil, shall incur inescapable punishment. These things, therefore, the Lord said to the Jews as man. But to the disciples, D showing His own divinity and greatness, no longer signifying Himself as less than the Spirit, but as greater and equal, He sent the Spirit and said: "I will send, and He shall glorify Me; and whatsoever He shall hear, He shall speak." And this is the teaching of this great master of the world. But also the eloquent preacher of heavenly things and interpreter of the invisible, the divine martyr Dionysius, while he has a discourse on the mystery of the sacred chrism, the inscription of which is, *On the Word of God and man*, explaining it in this way, declares: "The most divine Spirit, who is supplied by Him who for our sake, as becomes man, was sanctified by the Spirit which is the prince of divinity, possesses Him, while the essential state of His divinity remains unchanged by the descent of the Lord into human nature." That He is anointed by the Spirit which is the prince of divinity, and is sanctified, and is sent, is also fittingly...
A expounded by the one who walked in heaven, just as by the one who is his fellow-minded associate and close to him. For the declaration points to the same thing in the one of whom these things are said. Regarding the Spirit, however, one of them clearly sets forth His mission and gift from the Lord, in the words, "the greatness of divine glory," while the other declares His supply with the same intent.
4. Hence, he who is thus driven away by the divinely speaking ones on account of his innovation regarding the mission is also driven away from the very goal he proposes for himself, namely, by hastening to show that the Holy Spirit is not from the Son, and by using the same logic for the Spirit being sent by the Son that he himself B uses to claim that [the Spirit] is similarly sent by the Spirit. And this innovation of his is not only woven together with such a conclusion, but also [is refuted] by those things which, as a consequence, both of the aforementioned [Fathers] give us to understand, and by those things which the rest of the God-bearing teachers, being of one mind with them, explicitly proclaim: that the Son sends, gives, and supplies the Spirit who is from Him in a manner befitting God, and they do not define Him as "alien." [This is maintained by] the golden-tongued one, as previously cited, and others with him, and especially the slayer of the follies of Nestorius, the divinely inspired Cyril, who could not endure that the Holy Spirit be proclaimed as neither from the Son nor through the Son. The great [Father] opposes him C everywhere and refutes him here as well, since he cannot endure that it be said so, and then states that when the Only-Begotten supplies what is from the Father, he is saying that [the Son] fulfills a servile ministry and bestows what is "alien."
In his interpretation of the Gospel according to John, concerning the text, "But when the Paraclete shall come," which he explains, he says: "For if you think that the Son fulfills a servile ministry by bestowing upon us what is 'alien'—that is, the Spirit who is by nature holy, who is from God the Father—then the Son is not holy by nature, but by participation, just as we are." The divine Father clearly demonstrates from that assertion that if the Son has bestowed upon us the Spirit who is holy by His nature and is from God the Father, then D [the Son] is not only understood as someone handing over what is "alien" and performing a servile ministry, but it is also implied that He Himself is not holy by nature, but by participation, as we are—just as the apostles surely were, even if some of the sign-bearing men [were so], and just as he himself who says these things. For this phrase, "as we are," since the heralds of the Word and the disciples also gave the Spirit, as is set forth in their Acts, but not as holy by nature, but by participation and as ministers of the one who is given. For God alone is holy by nature, as is the Son; since He is God, He is thus proclaimed as the source of the Spirit who is holy and God by nature.
5. To these things, those toward whom our discourse is directed hasten to respond: "When we say that the Spirit is bestowed by the Son from the Father, we denote His consubstantiality, not that He is 'alien'." And they do not perceive that from this very thing, which they themselves deny, it is plainly concluded that what the divine man says refutes their intention, and that what they aim for—the consubstantial—is not supported, but is contradicted, as it rests upon the truth.
A For when it is read at length, inserted among the sayings of the Fathers, that the Holy Spirit is from the essence of the Father and the Son, they decree concerning both conjointly, and again from one in a peculiar manner, on either side, that the Spirit is said to be from the essence of the Son B because He is consubstantial with Him, and not because He is from Him. And while they understand from us that if whatever is consubstantial to the Son is therefore said to be from His essence, it is necessary, since the Son is also consubstantial to the Spirit, that He (the Son) be said to be from the essence of the Spirit. The same will also be the case regarding the Father and the Spirit, and furthermore the Father and the Son; for one of the three is and is said to be consubstantial to another. They assent to this and commit it to writing, and inscribe these things in volumes adorned with gold-woven covers and the rest of the silver finery. Afterwards, with the refutations we have presented, we demonstrate how the matter of the consubstantial stands, and the correct understanding of "from the essence," namely, that this latter follows the former with absolute necessity: for because the Son is from the essence of the Father, He is therefore consubstantial to the Father, and for this very reason the Father is consubstantial to the Son; and similarly regarding the Father and the Spirit, and the Son and the Spirit, and not vice versa, as they argue. For this, indeed, is a trophy of extreme infamy and disgrace, since hardly having returned to their own senses, they delete and banish the saying that the Son is from the essence of the Spirit, and similar things regarding the divine persons, just as if they had supreme authority in deciding dogmas and establishing theological rules, by which, nevertheless, the refutations demanding an account of these sayings are established in many ways. C If, therefore, the rationale of the consubstantial teaches that the Spirit is from the essence of the Son and declares that He is from Him, how will those who claim that the Spirit is supplied by the Son—but is not from Him—be able to say that He avoids the "extraneous" in the manner of a servant? Cyril, however, inspired by the divine, stopping the mouths of those who are brazenly attempting to abolish this, sets the matter straight in his discourse to the emperor Theodosius in these precise words: "Jesus," he says, "baptizing, does not inject into those being baptized an alien Spirit as a servant, but as God with supreme authority, [a Spirit] which is from Him and proper to Him." And regarding the text, "For He shall not speak of Himself," he explains it thus: "He calls the Paraclete the Spirit of Truth; for the Holy Spirit is not understood as alien to the essence of the Only-Begotten, but proceeds naturally from it, being no other than Him, if you consider the identity of nature, even if He is understood to exist by an own proper D hypostasis." In the seventh oration to Hermias concerning the God-Word, he declares in these express terms: "In this we know that He who is in us is from the Father, which He gave to us; for whoever has possessed Him who is by nature and truly God, who dwells and abides in us abundantly, receiving not an alien Spirit separated in essence from Him, but one who is from Him and through Him and in Him, and proper to Him, and possessing equal lordship as regards Him." Who, therefore, after these things have been examined in this way, could say that He is not an extraneous [spirit] contrary to
the truth A when it is also handed down that [all things are] from Him, and the one that is not from Him, [this] introduces an extraneous [spirit], but this clearly rejects [any spirit] from Him, both in communication, and mission, and providing, and similar things in either of the divine-ruling hypostases?
5. But if, not having [anything] to say against these things, the adversary should wish to say this also: that the progression of the two persons, the Son and the Spirit, unto existence is from the paternal essence, and the consubstantiality of both arises from this, as they exist from the same and one cause; and what necessity is there to say that the Spirit is from the essence of the Son, and to attribute the consubstantiality to them from this, and to declare [Him] to be from Him? To the divinely-taught mystagogues, if one does not choose to know them, there is nothing decided in theological matters which does not possess an interpretation openly and to which B objection cannot be made, if they also proclaim explicitly that the Spirit is from the essence of the Son: let him direct the gaze of his eyes to the investigation of the Scriptures commanded by the Lord's words that we have proposed, and he will find clearly how the consubstantiality of both persons from the one thus prevents the introduction of fraternal unity, so that both are decreed as originating from the one through another, and [so that] from this the blasphemies of those railing against [us], asserting two sons from the one, are cast away, and [so that] the question "Where is the Only-Begotten?" which is cast by them against those who think rightly as if they were in doubt about Him, is repelled. But when the divinely-speaking Fathers have refuted those who weave sons and grandsons into matters that are above us and exceed our comprehension, and especially Athanasius the great-named [the Great] among them, they stigmatize their folly, which connects the genealogies, or rather the impiety of the foolish accretions. I will provide two of the divinely-inspired [Fathers] who, from the C expressions "from both" and "through the Son," demonstrate that the Only-Begotten remains in the Son without any doubt, and that the duality of sonship and the [fraternal] brotherhood is driven away and cast far off. For one of the two, the light of the Nyssenes and the world, in the [work] to Ablabius, having theologized the Father as the uncaused cause, and the duality of the Son and Spirit from Him as the caused, and having assigned the difference of this one [the cause] toward both, again delivers another difference of what is caused, [namely] the duality, saying one is "contiguously" from the cause—which he also calls first—the Son, clearly, immediately from the Father; for the same thing is contiguously and D immediately; but the other through that which is contiguous from the first, that is to say the Spirit, the Spirit clearly, being understood as through the Son as a medium. And this is the theology, which hands down that both the Son and the Spirit are caused, and not both as sons, because the one is immediately from the cause, and the other through the one who is immediately [derived]. For the following statement confirms this, as it says: "So that both the Only-Begotten remains in the Son without doubt, and it is certain that the Spirit is from the Father, the mediation of the Son preserving the Only-Begotten for Himself, and not barring the Spirit from the natural relation toward the Father." The other, the God-manifest Epiphanius, in his book called the Ancyrotos, has this about the same things: "But someone will say:"
A 'Do we therefore say there are two Sons?' And then he adds: 'And how then is he Only-begotten?' And further on: 'But who are you to reason against God? For if he calls the Son 'the one out of Him,' and the Holy Spirit 'from both.'" Here, one of them puts the *through* upon the Son, saying "through the Son," and the other affirms the *from*, saying "from both." And that the *from* and the *out of* are the same thing, no one who is in doubt denies. Yet in another place, both take *out of* and *through* regarding the Son, as if they were equally and indifferently equivalent. And the most wise Cyril, in the same way, putting these together in his own discourses on God, in those to Palladius, explains it thus, determining: "The Holy Spirit is in no way mutable; or if he is subject to mutation, the censure will redound upon the divine nature itself, if he is of God and the Father, and indeed also of the Son essentially out of both, that is, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son." B Such are the things which the divine Fathers, the champions of truth, teach concerning the natural and eternal procession of both persons, and concerning their consubstantiality and connaturality, having cast far away the erroneous novelties of words.
7. And if those who oppose even the most manifest things say that the word *proceeds* indicates a different mode of existence than that which *generation* signifies, and that it dispels such verbal novelties, they will in fact confirm what has been said all the more, they will not destroy it. Since the tradition of those who speak of divine things, and the exposition thereof, is that the Son is immediately out of the Father, and the Holy Spirit through the Son, and the Paraclete is from both, namely from the Father and the Son, then the utterance of the word *proceeds* follows. And the procession of the divine hypostases, thus clarified, contains in itself the pre-eternal and the supra-temporal; but the word that signifies this eternal thing brings with it time, C as it is a vocal utterance of position; for which reason, those God-bearing men who established it, wishing to be confirmed in the divine Scripture of grace, in theological matters—as has already been said—frequently set down *proceeding* from the Father, as it is thus declared in the divine Gospel, even if sometimes they also set it down regarding the Son, in cases where *through the Son* is indeed present, but more frequently in the expressions *out of the Son* and *through the Son*, they explicitly teach from the same sacred Scripture that it has one and the same meaning with *proceeds*, both from the "Spirit of truth," "Spirit of the Son," "Spirit of Christ," and further from "He shall receive of Mine," and the rest, since they themselves are the mystagogues, ministers, and hierophants of the Gospel. Therefore, the interpreter of sacred things, Nyssen, in his homily on the Lord's Prayer, says: D "For the Only-begotten Son is named by holy Scripture as being out of the Father, and the discourse stops the property of him at this point; but the Holy Spirit is said to be both from the Father, and is witnessed to be from the Son." And immediately he adds in support: "For if anyone," he says, "does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person is not His." Therefore, the Spirit that is out of God is also the Spirit of Christ. The Son, however, being out of God, is not said to be, and is not
A of the Spirit; nor does this relative sequence reverse itself. Since, however, very many other testimonies follow which confirm the similar opinion expounded in the words already set forth above, we shall bring forward a few that are not dissimilar to them, passing over the rest, lest by repeating the same things we draw out the discourse to too great a length, although the equal power of the expressions may be demonstrated from those feebly adduced above. Hence, Chrysostom, who claims a name for himself from grace, says in his oration on Pentecost: "What then is the power of the word 'proceeds'? In order that Scripture might pass over the name of 'generation,' so as not to call Him a Son, it says: 'the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father.' It introduces Him as proceeding, like water gushing from a fountain, according to what was said B regarding Paradise: 'A river flows from Eden.' It proceeds and gushes," says this divine collector of mysteries, declaring the power of the word "proceeds," so that by it Scripture might pass over the name of "generation," and not present the Spirit as a Son—points which the champions of piety who followed later established as the definition of the expression, calling this a C mode of existence other than that of generation, and distinct; and finally, in the same place, he puts "proceeds" and "gushes" as both bringing in a different mode of existence. That "gushes" is also known to be used by Scripture in reference to the Son in many places and very often, is made clear also by the great shepherd of Alexandria, Athanasius, who is older in time than Chrysostom, but of like mind in his deeds and words performed according to God, in the debate he composed between an Orthodox believer and a Macedonian, regarding the word "gushes," he thus writes: "Far be it from me to say that anything in the Holy Spirit is adventitious. For I do not say that holiness, nor incorruptibility, nor immortality, nor anything else considered D of God is adventitious to the Holy Spirit; but He is holy by nature, good by nature, incorruptible by nature, as the Spirit of God, and gushing from Him, or rather proceeding." Since, therefore, the Pneumatomachi—to sum up the discourse in brief terms—by gathering a sibling consubstantiality from the fact that the duality of subsistences was being proclaimed as proceeding out of the Father's essence, and by posing the objection, "Where, then, is the Only-Begotten?"—and from there, in order to preserve this, they would demote the Holy Spirit away from being of the Father's essence, and rather into the creation—and the teachers instructed by God, repelling the blasphemy of this slander, delivered the explanation that the Son is dogmatized as being from the Father, while the Spirit is from the same essence of both, and so from the Father through the Son; and from there, both the "Only-Begotten" is undoubtedly preserved, and the "sibling consubstantiality" is cast away; and furthermore, they interpreted the word "proceeds" as manifesting this very thing, that thus from the Father the Son, and thus from both the Spirit proceeds, for this is the other mode of existence, and distinct, and "He shall receive of mine," and other such expressions of the same meaning, they explained—and that the Son in no way exerts a servile ministry,
A in the mission, the supplying, and the giving of the Spirit through Him, and that the Spirit is not something extraneous to Him—this they clarified by means of this theology which was thus set forth. But those who cannot bear to hear that the divine Spirit, according to the preaching thus upheld, in any way possesses an eternal procession from the Son, or through the Son, but even brand with the mark of blasphemy those who assert it—those who cherish the fear of God in their hearts have no doubt as to where they are being carried away or from what heights they are falling. Nevertheless, since we have adduced one statement from Epiphanius, who is most illustrious in divine matters, a statement which concisely gathers together what has been explained at greater length and in scattered fashion, we shall pass on to other things. For here, where he speaks of the Spirit proceeding from both, he also implies the following: "The Holy Spirit is not the brother of a brother, nor the brother of a father, but is of the same essence as the Father and the Son. For the Only-Begotten Himself says: 'The Spirit of the Father,' and 'Who proceeds from the Father,' and 'He shall receive of mine.'" By proving that the statement, "Who proceeds from the Father," and likewise that, "He shall receive of mine," signify one and the same reality, he openly demonstrates it, and confirms that it is from both; he refutes the "brotherly" conclusions B of his adversaries, and teaches most manifestly that the Spirit is not to be understood as something extraneous, just as in the Father, so also in the Son.
8. Since we have therefore been led to these things, for which reason we have brought forward—concerning the mission and the anointing and similar points regarding the God-man Word by the Spirit—the great defenders of piety, the much-suffering Athanasius, and that observer of heavenly things, the great Dionysius, and especially the aforementioned one—it is necessary also to discuss the words of the other, he who derives his name from immortality. Wherefore we must consider by what reasoning he, after having shown that the Lord was anointed by the Spirit according to His humanity, and having thereafter said, "He casts out demons by the Spirit of God," and while speaking in such a way to the Jews, says with great resonance: "But to His disciples, showing His divinity and majesty, no longer signifying Himself to be less than the Spirit, but greater and equal, He bestowed the Spirit and said: 'I will send, and He shall glorify me, and whatsoever He shall hear, He shall speak.'" C The mission, therefore, and the giving of the Son according to the flesh is by the Spirit, but the [giving] of the Spirit [is] by the Son according to the magnitude of divine glory. And even if it is of the divinity to bring medicine to the contrite in heart—that is, to heal the diseases of souls—it is not something that hinders the mission. For He who worked such things was twofold, since it is manifest and clear that on the very cross He performed the works of a dual operation—the earthquake, the darkening of the sun, and the rending of the veil—and again, the things belonging to thirst and the rest of His humanity and divinity. What reasoning, then, is there here, D according to which the Son is greater than the Spirit? Let those who, with an impudent style of writing, define that both hypostases send one another reciprocally according to their divinity, and who thence derive [the Spirit] from the Son and through the Son, tell us. For if they do not reject this sending, then in what sense is the expression...
of the "greater" taken? They have no cliff from which to escape the utmost blasphemy. For the hieromyst A clearly says that the Son is greater than the Spirit, and immediately calls him equal. And he adds thereafter: "He gave the Spirit, and was saying: 'I will send,'" most clearly demonstrating that, just as Wisdom herself clearly instructed in the Gospels that the Father is greater than and equal to Himself, saying, "My Father is greater than I," and again, "I and the Father are one," so also here, in giving and sending the Spirit according to divinity, He clearly signified that He is greater than and equal to Him. And as the equality is there, so here it is according to the undeviating nature, but the "greater" is according to the property, in that the Son is from the Father, but the Father is not from Him—for this is a property—and that the Spirit is from the Son and through the Son, and not the reverse. Hence, as the mission of the Son from the Father, not having in itself that which indicates the timeless existence of the Son from the Father, as being also toward the creature, B yet as following upon this supra-temporal existence, and naturally serving as a proof of it, possesses the being and the naming of the Son from the Father, but by no means the Father from the Son; so also the mission of the Spirit from the Son, considered in the same way, is and is called from the Son, but certainly not the Son from the Spirit according to divinity. That the summit of our confession, Athanasius, holds that these things are so, and that "greater" is used regarding the Son and the Spirit according to the property already set forth, just as with the Father and the Son, is clearly evident from his divine commentaries, and now solely from what he decrees in the letters to Serapion; for when he says: "The Spirit has the same order and nature toward the Son as the Son has toward the Father," C he repeats again in the same place: "For the property that we recognize in the Son toward the Father, the same shall we find the Spirit has toward the Son." And again: "For just as the Son is in the Spirit as in His own image, so is the Father in the Son." And after some words: "The Spirit is called and is the image of the Son. For those whom He knew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son." And he who is rightly named by his deeds, Gregory the Thaumaturge, in the mention of his dogmatic Revelation says: "The Son is the image of the Father," and after a little, "The Spirit is the image of the Son, perfect of the perfect." And it is read D everywhere in the divine Scriptures: "the Son of the Father," "the Spirit of the Son," and nowhere is the Father the image of the Son, nor the Son of the Spirit, even though the essence of the three is one. Yet if they were called this because of this [common essence], and not because of the aforementioned property of natural procession, one could indifferently be called the image of the other. However, these things are not, nor are they said. For the Son is the image of Him from whom He is, according to the opinion of Gregory, great in theological matters. For when he had posited consubstantiality above, he immediately subjoined: "And that which is from this, the Father is not from it," adapting the congruence between them, since even in a consubstantial
relationship, it is from this [source] that the Son is from the essence of the Father, and not in the least is [that which is] from the essence [caused] by consubstantiality, regarding which we have discoursed obscurely above, while in other of our discourses we B have shown more amply how great is the absurdity of those who establish the latter. The Spirit is similarly the image of the Son, as being from Him and through Him according to the tradition of the image. But if the image is of that from which what is from it is—according to our divine interpreters and leaders—then because it is not from that from which it does not exist, it would not be an image of that from which it does not exist. For this reason, neither is the Father the image of the Son, since He is not from Him, but because this is from that (as is the pinnacle of the theologians), nor is the Son the image of the Spirit according to the same reasoning; they neither are, nor are they called such. Rather, the archetype of the Son is the Father, and the prototypal of the Spirit is the Son. Whence the shepherd of Neocaesarea, namesake to the wonders, in the discourse whose beginning is: "Most hostile and alien to the apostolic confession are those who say the Son is from things which are not," says: "The beginning of the Son is the Father, eternally begetting Him; and the Lord is the prototypal of the Spirit." These things, indeed, those God-inspired expounders of mysteries deliver according to the order of the eternal existences of the divinely-ruling hypostases, and they openly declare that "as the Son is toward the Father, so is the Spirit toward the Son," and again, they dogmatize that "as the Spirit is of the Father, so also is He of the Son according to their procession into being," attributing it as common to the Father and the Son, and as the proper [Spirit] of the Father and the Son most clearly, and by these means they distinguish that He is from both, or from the Father through the Son. Whence Maximus, truly celebrated for his confession, while explaining what the golden lampstand signifies in the prophet Zechariah, and the small lamp and torches upon it, openly and clearly proclaims: "The Holy Spirit, just as He is by nature according to substance of God and Father, so also is He [the Spirit] of the Son according to substance," and adding in connection: "As if proceeding essentially from the Father through the Son who is begotten in a manner which cannot be expressed in words." And the divine Cyril, on the text stating, "I have seen the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven," says among other things: "As the Holy Spirit is the Father's, so also is He the Son's." And on that: "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete," he writes: "Since the Son is an essential participant in the natural goods of God and Father, He has the Spirit in the same manner in which the Father is understood to have Him." And in those things which he gave against Palladius, affirming: "The Spirit is in no way mutable; but if He is liable to mutation, the insult will recur upon the divine nature itself, if He is of God and Father, and moreover of the Son," he immediately subjoins: "Essentially poured forth from both, that is to say, from the Father through the Son, the Holy Spirit." The same God-speaking man, with other divine Fathers, asserts that "He is the proper Spirit of the Father, the proper Spirit of the Son, the proper Spirit of both."
A In his sixth book to Hermias, as if questioning him, he constructs his discourse thus: "Whose proper Spirit shall we say the Holy Spirit is? Is He only of God and the Father, or also of the Son, or individually of each, and of both, as from the Father through the Son because of the identity of essence?" In his expositions on the Gospel of John, on the verse "the Spirit of truth," he explains it thus: "For behold, behold the Spirit of truth"—meaning the Paraclete himself—"He says that He proceeds from the Father. For just as the Spirit is proper to the Son, existing naturally in Him and proceeding through Him, so too is He the Spirit of the Father; and for those to whom the Spirit is common, surely those things which belong to the essence must not be separate." And elsewhere he frequently declares Him proper to both, unitedly and individually. But the Father is not proper to the Spirit, nor B is the Son in any place. Therefore, by the same logic—by which there is an image, by which there is a mission, since the discourse is about the economy for our sake, in accordance with which there is the provision and the gift and things akin to these, and as it is made clear how manifest it is in them that there is a place for reciprocal relation—we are taught by the judgment of the divine mystagogues here also not to assert this very thing too confidently. Therefore, the heaven-inspired master of mysteries who is close at hand, explaining in what sense "proper" is to be understood in the Godhead, in his discourse to Nestorius, which begins, "Some speak ill, as I hear, of my opinion," writes: C "For just as what is born from a man, and indeed from any other living creature, according to nature, would be considered and called his property, so too that which is from the essence of God would be understood and called proper to God." It is therefore manifest that just as the Holy Spirit is proper to the Father as being from His essence, so also is He proper to the Son as existing from His essence. And this is clearly declared both by the purity of the meaning of "proper" handed down by the divine speaker himself, and by the teachings of the doctors concerning the same, that "as He is proper to the Father, so He is also to the Son" by essence. Nay, even the other remaining sayings of his, D collected above, which proclaim with open voice that the Spirit is not foreign to the Son, but from Him and proper to Him from the giving and the sending, and now by adding here the brief testimony recently brought forward on the verse "I saw the Spirit descending," which we explored a little earlier, we shall sufficiently establish the fact, which is expressed in these words: "The likeness of Christ is similar in all things to His own Spirit, which is poured forth from Him," omitting many others which occur frequently.
9. But that which had to be examined before what has already been said must also be considered, which the supreme judge of this matter hands down regarding the mission, discussing it in this manner: "Does someone send a servant or a son, having received him from another, or having him from himself?" Let us therefore consider what the venerable Gospel decrees regarding the mission. John, the summit of theology, says in the person of Christ: "The works which I do bear witness of me, that the A Father has sent me, and
again, the same person speaks as if from himself concerning the Paraclete: "Whom the Father will send in my name." And again, as if from the Savior: "If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send him to you." And divine Luke A the herald of God says: "In the sixth month, Gabriel was sent from heaven by God." And the summit of the apostles cries out to the Hebrews: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister?" These missions in Holy Scripture are, on the one hand, worthy of God and fittingly spoken of and understood regarding the divine hypostases, and on the other hand, they are from God but adapted to creatures and servants.
Hence, the mission of the Son from the Father is a most clear sign of His eternal irradiation from Him—from whom He truly follows as if shining forth most conspicuously—in the same manner that the consubstantial splendor follows from the essence by nature; and we cannot say that it is "from the essence" for this very reason with respect to the Son. For, if it were so, then the Father would be from the essence of the Son. But rather, because the Son is from the essence of the Father, for this reason the Father is consubstantial to the Son, and the Son to the Father; just as, since that former fact is clearly established, this latter must necessarily follow. In the same way, the mission which is in time follows the eternal existence of the Son from the Father, manifesting Him as one proceeding from His essence, and thence the co-naturality of both is understood; and there is no room for conversion, since the Father is in no way from the essence of the Son. B
Neither is the mission of the Spirit from the Father anything else, even if the manner of His procession to existence—that is, from whom He is—is different; since it is also clear that the Paraclete is sent by the Son. Therefore, by whatever reasoning the mission from the Father is considered, the same mission from the Son is understood, if the Paraclete is the common Spirit of both, and if He is the Spirit of the Son just as He is of the Father, and if He is the proper Spirit of the Son just as He is of the Father, and if these are the voices of the Fathers, and if the explanation of the proper meaning—which was set forth above—has been handed down by them. Hence, when the Paraclete is sent as from the Father, those things that pertain to conversion have absolutely no place, because of the sequence He has toward His eternal existence; and thus, to understand it as being from the Son with respect to the glory of the divinity is by the same reasoning impossible.
And so far is it from being the case that the mission of Christ is from the Spirit—for it cannot happen that Christ is from the Spirit, just as Christ is not at all the Spirit—that in theological matters the excellent Nyssen, when he had established in his homily on the Lord's Prayer that the only-begotten Son is said by divine Scripture to be from the Father, and that its property does not extend beyond that, says that the Holy Spirit is both said to be "from the Father" and is asserted to be "from the Son" from that apostolic saying, "the Spirit of Christ," and proves Him to be from the Son while saying: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him," C D and immediately adds: "Therefore, since the Spirit is from God, He is also the Spirit of Christ...
clearly explaining that, even if both the Son and the Spirit are from the Father, and that which is from the Father is common to both, it does not follow that one is from the other by the logic of conversion. Rather, the Spirit, being from God—that is, from the Father—is also the Spirit of Christ; and because He is also from Christ according to the very close constitution of this great Father, who—from the fact that the Spirit is discerned as the Spirit of Christ—declared that He is also from Christ: "The Son, however," he says, "being from God, is neither the Spirit, nor is He called such, and this relative sequence does not convert." If, therefore, just as the Spirit of Christ cannot, through this kind of natural relative sequence, be called the "Spirit of Christ" in reverse, how can she be called from it in reverse—as a mission from the Spirit of Christ, or a mission of Christ from the Spirit—according to the B logic of the Divinity? You will find this nowhere in the divinely inspired Scriptures. And yet, that which is said to be of something, even if it does not admit of conversion by way of natural relationship, is undoubtedly from that of which it is said to be. Such is the flower of a plant, which is called its flower, yet is not converted toward it such that the plant is called its flower; it is, by the reckoning of all, from that of which it is called the flower. And the heat of fire, which does not admit of conversion, such that fire is called the heat, is from that of which it is named the heat. It is the same with the water of a spring and the light of the sun; not knowing conversion, they are from those of which they are said to be. And other similar things, that we might depict those things which are above being by a faint resemblance of analogy from those things which are—as the one who shares a name with "vigilance" and the pinnacle of theologians C decrees in a didactic manner. Therefore, with regard to the missions which are considered in the principles of the Divinity, as explained from the evangelical sayings and examined from the words of the divine Fathers, and regarding those that pertain to the serving spirits—as befits created and circumscribed ministers—he who brings forward the differences of missions from his own mind, saying: "Someone sends a son, or a servant, or some other thing, having received it from another, or even having it himself,"—since he combines these things while looking toward the missions of the divine Persons already mentioned, I cannot discern toward which of these he is directing his mind. For by looking to one and the same thing, he seems to heap these together. If, therefore, he is looking to the Father, the first and double division of his words, even if it preserves what is fitting, is far from what is intended by the second. For what is it that the Father sends, having received it from another? This is nowhere the case. If to the Son, the opposite is detected; and the second of the divisions holds well enough D if you consider the author's intent, but the first, since it is double in one of its parts, is far removed from the purpose. For there is nowhere the mission of the Son from the Only-Begotten. But if anyone says that he refers the first to the Father and the second to the Son, by the arrangement of his discourse he will establish that they neither cohere nor agree.
10. Nevertheless, A ignoring these things, and striving toward what the one who says these things is hastening, wishing to establish that the Spirit is neither from the Son nor through the Son, we shall also set forth here arguments against him, gathered in our usual manner. For when he had said, "receiving from another, or having it from himself," he adds in connection with these: "And the rays of the sun send light to us, having it, of course, from the sun." That he says these things with reference to the Son is clear from this inductive example which he brings forward. For if, in asserting that the Son receives the Holy Spirit from another—that is, from the Father—he were asserting this according to the interpretations of the divine Scriptures, which refer whatever is said to be from the Son and through the Son, both regarding the uncreated and supernatural hypostasis of the Spirit and regarding the creation and making of things, to the Father as the first cause, root, B and principal and primary cause—since they also proclaim C that the Son himself subsists in a God-befitting manner from Him and before the ages, but according to the order of the eternal procession of the hypostases, and the consequent connatural existence of them from both essentially, they give Him forth as the Spirit from the Father through the Son—if he were reporting it in this way, he would be entirely adhering to the prescribed scriptural investigation. But since he directs his efforts elsewhere and insinuates the opposite of these things, saying: "And the Only-Begotten sends the Paraclete, having received him from another, existing neither from him nor through him," he altogether rejects the truth that the Spirit is common and proper to the Father, and thus also to the Son—the reception and explanation of which the aforementioned patristic statements make clear—so that the Son must perform a servile ministry and the Spirit must be foreign to Him; the inept and absurd nature of which statement the sayings of the doctors openly refute and clearly prove. For he hardly concedes that the Spirit belongs to the Son, while saying, "or even having it himself—though not in the same way, but in a different way from the Father," altogether dismissing that it is from the Son and through the Son, just as Nestorius used to blather, calling the Word, who is God and man by nature, a "God-bearing man," the symbol of whose faith is also found to have been handed down by the same [Nestorius] to his own sect, so that it is proclaimed by those who come to the holy bath D aloud: "neither from the Son, nor through the Son." Against him, the God-glorified Cyril, contending, while he argues that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, and is, and exists, clearly and openly adds: "in the same way as from God and the Father." But leaving aside these things, which require more expansive discourse, let us recall for the one who now concedes that "the Spirit is also had from the Son, but in a different way from the Father," a few points from the theological sayings we mentioned above and placed earlier, which plainly cry out: "The Son, being an essential participant in the natural goods of God and the Father, has the Spirit in the same way as the Father is understood to have Him." Furthermore, of the mystagogue who explains these things, from those which we brought forward above, one [passage] that was then passed over in silence, now
A we insert, dictated in these words: "Liberating [one] from the sin adhering to him, He afterwards anoints him with His own Spirit, whom He sends forth indeed as the Word from God the Father, and pours out from His own nature toward us, in the manner of a fountain." That this divine Father shows that he who denies the theology thus proclaimed is not only blasphemous against the Only-begotten, but also ascribes the same blasphemes to the Spirit Himself. For regarding the text, "He shall remind you of what I have said," he pronounces thus: B "Therefore, as one well knowing what are in the counsel of the Only-begotten, the Spirit will announce all things to you, not possessing knowledge through learning, lest He appear to fulfill the role of a minister, but as the Spirit of Him, and knowing inseparably all things of Him, from whom and in whom He is." If, therefore, the champions of piety from these words, "He shall remind you, He shall glorify Me"—the Paraclete, that is—and "whatever He hears He shall speak," clearly proclaim Him to be from the Son, and if this were not so, they declare that absurdities follow, as we were saying regarding the mission, and the supply, and the gift, and from these and similar [examples] we recognize the same proportion in the Father and the Son, and in the Father and the Spirit, as was said before, C who adduces as an example the sun, the ray, and the light, so that this also might be brought into examination. He says that the ray, receiving from another—the sun, that is—sends the light, which is neither from it nor through it, and from this he figures that the Spirit is sent by the Son, neither existing from Him nor through Him. How, from this comparison, will he be able to penetrate to those things which the divine Fathers define, or rather, how will he be able to escape the blasphemies that arise from those things which he himself denies? But if, not applying his mind at all to the theological dicta of the Fathers—for he clearly shows that he has neither considered nor examined them—he in no way admits them, even if he excels in logical disciplines, whence did he have it that the solar ray serves as a minister or an instrument D for the mission of light, so that it is not through the ray that this happens, if these three—the orb, the ray, and the light—exist as a triune and indivisible light, and there is one co-existence of the three, and they fulfill or complete one nature, and are perpetually joined and remain inseparable as long as the construction of this universe shall endure? For if what is said through another is said to be from another, either naturally and essentially, and possesses from that [source] the progress into being, through which it is said [to come], or in an instrumental and ministerial [manner], and in no way boasts of having its existence through it, as water [flowing] from a fountain through a pipe—for this [pipe] is in no way received into the natural essence of the water, if it is of another nature and essence, unless only for the instrumental passage of the water. But if someone should say that the water is from there through the river, or through the fountain from the spring—for both are asserted, [that is] the [being] through the fountain, or from it through the river—he has immediately indicated the wellspring of the water, since these three are of the same nature, and having been allotted such a nature that from the first through the second is the third; these, I say, if they are so, [as they are] from the natural order, discourse pru-
- A dently has what constitution, saying that the ray from the sun sends forth the light, not on the assumption that it is not through it, but as it receives it? For from this a disclosure of other-naturedness would fall upon these [things], not an organic togetherness, or one that indisputably fulfills the ministerial need of the ray; which things the God-illumined luminaries of the Church, along with many other images, insofar as it is possible from created things to convey a likeness corresponding to the uncreated Trinity, have handed down, demonstrating the natural and eternal existence of the Son and of the Spirit from the Father, who is the source of both persons, and through the Son the [existence] of the Spirit, just as from the sun there is the ray and the light, and through the ray the light. But also from the Son [is] the Spirit, just as also from the ray is the light, both prepositions here possessing equivalent power, even if there is a great difference between them when considered in another way, when the first and primordial cause, the Father, manifests [Himself], and that which is without cause, concerning which things the God-bearing guides into the mysteries instruct in other of our discourses, for one who wishes to find. But now, when the divine hypostases that are imaged are viewed as being of one nature, and of equal honor, and those which image them have an equal honor toward one another according to the analogy, and possess the same nature, from which the God-speakers say it is made clear that the divine Spirit is sent from both as being of one God, and as substantially flowing forth from both, that is, from the Father through the Son C for the sanctification of the rational and intellectual created essence, indivisibly and eternally, just as from both the light is sent, that is to say, the illumination into the air, that is, from the sun through the ray, indivisibly flowing forth from thence to illuminate the sensible and created things, even if not eternally, yet as coeval with them and co-existent with them. Whence the great Epiphanius, in his *Ancoratus*, among other things which he theologizes, sets forth similarly thus: “The holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, a third light from the Father and the Son.” And the divine Cyril, the inspired one, gathering into one and explaining the frequent and various sayings of the Fathers, clearly theologizing that the holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, and through the Son, in the first book of those *To Palladius*, says: “Substantially flowing forth from both,” that is, from the Father through the Son, the Spirit, as has been set forth before.
11. But he [who is] from the belly of voices, and clings to those [arguments] from the belly, and remains in the words and thoughts from the same, and stitching these together, adds: “If the Spirit were coming beforehand, and the Son was meant to, and was promising to send Him from the Father the Spirit, that is, to approve and cooperate that He might arrive. But now, since the Son came beforehand, He Himself again promised to send the Spirit.” And whence are these things? From what traditions and scriptural testimonies, or those being shown to gather [this], or being set down explicitly anywhere? Manifestly, it is confirmed from what he says that in no way did the advent of the Spirit occur before the promised arrival [of Him] in the upper room.
How then shall the things which the Scriptures cry out be understood? How shall they be distinguished, unless they have such a meaning as he dreams of? In his discourse on Pentecost, that ever-vigilant mind of theology A cries out with a great voice concerning the all-powerful Spirit: "This, first of all, was active in the angelic and heavenly powers." And after a little: "Then in the fathers and in the prophets." And after some things: "Then in the disciples of Christ." And in his *Antirrheticus* concerning the Holy Spirit, he proclaims it clearly, calling it "all-powerful, all-seeing, passing through all intelligent, pure, most subtle spirits—that is, the angelic powers, I think—just as also through the prophetic and apostolic ones at the same time and not in the same places, but distributed to others in other places, by which its uncircumscribed nature is shown." And again in his *[Discourse] on Pentecost*: "And the Spirit of the Lord descended and led them." And again: "This Spirit, since it is most wise and most philanthropic, if it finds a shepherd, it makes him a psalmist, chanting down evil spirits, and designates a king of Israel. If it finds one who is pruning B sycamore trees, it makes him a prophet—call to mind David and Amos. If it finds a gifted youth, it makes him a judge of elders and a judge beyond his years; and Daniel bears witness, who overcame lions in a pit." From these things the Church sings out clearly in some of her daily melodic hymns, honoring the Holy Spirit, who speaks through the prophets as through instruments at specific and set times and places. And as for the rest, what evidence does [the opponent] have for these things to say that it did not descend before? Or rather, what sort of replacement is he not clinging to? But even in that very awe-inspiring appearance of the Lord's incarnation, the summit of theology, in one of both [discourses], the *Antirrheticus*, speaking concerning the Spirit, clarifies these things: "Christ is born, the Spirit C runs before [Him]. He is baptized, the Spirit bears witness. He is tempted, the Spirit leads [Him] up. He performs miracles, the Spirit is present. He is taken up, the Spirit succeeds [Him]." And before these things, he says: "And it encounters the disciples in various ways, measured according to the capacity of those receiving [it], namely in the beginning of the Gospel, after the passion, after the ascension performing miracles, and being breathed upon, and appearing in tongues of fire." Where are those who decree that the Holy Spirit breathed by the Lord upon the apostles after the resurrection was a spiritual gift, but that the advent of that [Spirit] occurred when it appeared in tongues of fire? Let them learn from this great herald, who does not preach anything else, but that this very thing was what was breathed. But if some were in doubt regarding the advents of the Spirit while the Word, being God and man, walked D upon the earth—how those [advents] were diverse—this great, divinely-speaking herald arrives, pre-emptively dissolving and overturning for them the causes of their perplexity, and thus clarifying the matters of the confrontation, [showing] that [the Spirit] is no other than the Paraclete in the upper room.
A For the Savior had certain things that—even if [the disciples] were being filled with manifold teaching—could not yet be borne by the disciples, for the reasons I have mentioned; and for this [reason] they were concealed, and again they would all be taught by the Spirit who was to inhabit [them]. But the Savior is also said to have inhabited [the world] in the flesh at the end of the ages, and to have moved about on earth as a man. Yet as God, He was always inhabiting [it], not only by being present everywhere, but because He appeared in specific places and to specific persons, in as much as they were able to contain Him. For indeed the Trinity is hosted in the tent of Abraham, by that genuine servant of His, and the uncircumscribed Word of God descends and stands with the youths, sprinkling the furnace with dew for them. The tyrant, beholding Him, was struck with awe, and confessed Him to be the Son of God, and the Church frequently sings hymns in this manner. Concerning these matters, there is enough said here, since there is much more that remains to be said in order; or rather, concerning the mission of the Spirit, how this has been taken excessively dangerously by the [man] who is antithetically disposed, and what and how great things the God-ordained Fathers, theologically delivering [the doctrine], teach concerning it; and this has been sufficiently spoken of and judged. B
12. Now, concerning those who have been called by Christ, who have given their ears to the covenant and embraced peace, the adversary, accusing them, writes below: "To manifest," they say, "to pour out, and to cause to proceed, are the same." Therefore, when the Lord Jesus says He will manifest Himself to the apostles, and they doubt, saying, "Why are you about to manifest Yourself to them and not to the world?"—if to manifest is the same as to cause to proceed,, then of necessity, according to them, He promises to cause Himself to proceed unto them, which is absurd and impious even to conceive in the mind. And when God says He manifests Himself to Moses, according to them, God says He causes Himself to proceed. "And when I pour out," He says, "from my Spirit upon all flesh"—this, they say, is altogether the same as "I cause to proceed," if of necessity "to pour out" and "to cause to proceed" are the same. If, then, the Spirit said "to pour out," this would have a plausible argument, even if [it were] not true; but now He says, "from my Spirit." But if "to send" is the same as "to cause to proceed," the Holy Spirit at Isaiah, while sending the Son, causes Him to proceed, evidently. C No one among the divine Fathers, while delivering [the doctrine] of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, or through the Son, is found to have used "to manifest," nor [anyone] from among our own number, not even from the [many] among us; but it was done, I think, through the error of an interpreter, so that what "to manifest" is—though it is rarely used—was intruded [into the text], since there was no one who could interpret it correctly. And we have sufficiently examined the meaning of "to be sent" above, refuting the opinion of the adversary. Nevertheless, from these absurdities which he himself seems to gather from the word "manifest," he shows that he takes all the expressions uttered by the Fathers in those [theologies] concerning [the Spirit] from the Father and the Son, or through the Son, not with one meaning in God and another in other places, D but as the same and one in all things, which [practice] rather [leads] him into different and other [errors].
It leads him into absurdities and makes him wander far and wide, A not [by using] "manifesting" or "revealing" in one sense and then another. For if the aforementioned expressions are taken in regard to the Holy Spirit as he himself considers and demonstrates, "to proceed"—which exists in almost all of Scripture as capable of a myriad of meanings—to what kind of blasphemies will this not compel him? To such as this: "As an abortion proceeding from the mother's womb," that which is said in Job; if "proceeding" is taken in regard to the Spirit as he takes this [word], as he says in the case of "manifesting." And again, the [passage] concerning the adversary: "Out of his mouth proceed burning torches; from his nostrils proceeds the smoke of a furnace burning with coals of fire. And a flame proceeds from his mouth." And that in the Gospels: "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts." And again: "There is nothing entering into man from without which can defile him, but those things which proceed from him, these are what defile a man." And the usage of "to proceed" in divine Scripture is B truly infinite in its diverse meanings, and of these there is none at all that has the same force as the procession of the Spirit, unless one were to take it in some way by the mere naked conception of the system of those named after Christ; even if he were to say that the "manifesting" was spoken of Christ. But this is far removed from the divine procession of the Spirit; since also the statement, "As he was proceeding from Jericho," is spoken concerning the Savior in the Gospels. And again, "A great multitude followed him as he was proceeding from Jericho." But how very far these [examples] C are from the procession that signifies the eternal and distinct existence of the Spirit. Hence, he who does not thus take the aforementioned words—otherwise in a way befitting and appropriate to God concerning the divine progress, and otherwise in the case of external things—but takes them concurrently, as if they meant one and the same thing, is himself the cause that he both misinterprets and draws poor conclusions. Manifestation, indeed, when accepted regarding God, is placed in the number of those things which do not possess in themselves the same meaning as "procession," but that of what follows from it—namely, giving, D supplying, and mission, concerning which we have already spoken fully above. Nor must the term "to flow" be discussed in any other way.
13. We, however, shall put forward very many expressions regarding God that clearly converge to this same point, so that it may be known all the more—just as with the [term] "manifesting"—that if the utterance were as he posited it, and not as has been explained, we would not have failed to set this forth as well. Indeed, [some] of those [terms] that make the same force clear as "to proceed" are "to spring forth," "to flow forth," "to go forward," "to have appeared," "[He] shall take of mine," and the rest. And these, in the case of God, exist outside of the meanings that receive them homonymously, but are indicative of the one and simple meaning in God, just as "to proceed" is. And "to spring forth," in that it is the same in meaning as that of "to proceed"
A and to exist from the Father, we have brought forward both great lights—the one named for immortality, and the other, Chrysologus, who by grace claims the name for himself—proclaiming them with a mighty voice. Concerning "to be poured forth" and "to proceed," the divinely taught Cyril, in the sixth book of his work *Against Hermias*, theologizes in this manner: "Is the statement brought forward clear to you, and have you perceived that he called the Paraclete the Spirit of truth? For he said that he proceeds from the Father, showing all things of the Father to be his own." The same author, in the same work to the same person, says: "Do you perceive B therefore how he promises to send to us, as his very own, the One who is from the Father? And though he calls him the Spirit of truth, he has nevertheless determined that he is poured forth from this same Father. Furthermore, he foreannounced that he would bear witness concerning him." By what reasoning did he who undertook to manifest these things pass them over? Or how, through neglect of the Lord’s precept concerning the searching of the Scriptures, does he utter things that fall haphazardly from his tongue rather than from his own proper principles? Or by what reasoning were the leaders of these and similar people in the universal assembly driven to opinions of homonymy, where the summit of the Fathers testifies that the Savior in the Gospels clearly proclaimed "it is poured forth" and "it proceeds," whereas he [the opponent] has confessed that He proceeds? But this deed of empty thinking—I would more aptly call it stupidity—he himself, by a divine nod as if foreseeing, C wards off, and most clearly, while the Cypriot and Muzalon shout that "to proceed" and "to be poured forth" from the Father indicate the same thing, but regarding the Son they shout otherwise, he stops their mouth and opposes that very thing: "in the same manner as from the Father." For in his discourse to Nestorius, the beginning of which is, "Our Savior clearly saying, *He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me*," he uses no other words: "Even if the Spirit is in his own hypostasis and is understood by himself, according to that which he is Spirit and not the Son, nevertheless he is not alien to him. For he has been named the Spirit of truth, and Christ is the truth, and he is poured forth from him in the same manner as also from the Father." But also in other places, he uses similar expressions everywhere: "Just as," he says, "he is understood also concerning God the Father himself." D Hence the machine of newly invented machinations against the truth is driven away, and by the divine voice it is confirmed that "to be poured forth," "to progress," and "to proceed" are one and the same thing. Thus, surely and confidently, the mind that is alert to theology—and takes its name from it—cries out: "For we shall not contend about names, as long as the syllables convey the same meaning." And again, the great observer of invisible things, Dionysius, declaring it to be irrational and altogether absurd "not to attend to the power of the design itself, but to the words; and this is not proper for those who desire to understand divine things, but for those who listen to mere sounds and admit them only superficially into their ears," then he adds, saying: "As if it were not permitted to signify the number four by twice two, or simple lines by straight lines, or the maternal land by the fatherland, or anything whatever by that which in many
A respects is equivalent. He who is placed next to him, and in all things agrees with him, in his discourse concerning the Spirit, directing his argument against the adversary, disposes it in this manner: “But if, when you said twice five or twice seven, I were to collect ten, or fourteen, from your words, would you think I was speaking nonsense? And how would that be, when I repeat your own words?” Also, Maximus, most celebrated for his zeal and confession, cries out aloud: “The Fathers often concede the words, but in no way the meanings, because the great mystery of piety does not consist in words, but in meanings.” Those, therefore, who daily confirm the dissension of the Churches under the pretext of zeal, where do they plant their firm standing, and where do they consider themselves secure, if not manifestly in the open opposition of the words and persons mentioned above? Nevertheless, other terms must also be B considered, which signify nothing other than the procession itself. For it is not worth the effort to pass over the others here, even if it is our intention to bring forward only a few from the many, to prove and establish what we say.
Therefore, concerning that which appears in one of the chapters—that the Holy Spirit is of the divine nature—the great-minded Basil declares these things: “For the Spirit, being placed together with the living Word for the purpose of creating, is a living power and a divine nature, appearing ineffably from the ineffable mouth.” The same author, in the explanation of the thirty-second Psalm: “As therefore the creator Word established the heaven, so also the Spirit of God, who proceeds from the Father, that is to say, from his mouth.” And so, that which there is “divine nature appearing from the ineffable mouth,” here is clearly “proceeds from the mouth.” And how could the high-minded one [proclaim] these things, if he did not know that appearing and proceeding are one and the same according to the mind?
That very many of the God-bearing ones dogmatize that the Son is the mouth of the Father, Anastasius, the holy light of the Antiochians, alone taken as an example, will clearly clarify. For regarding the right dogmas of the truth among us, the title of certain books has the name of the great Theodore, the presbyter of Raithu, renowned in divine dogmas, who, theologizing, says thus: “Taking the property of the body as an example, we have represented the mutual coherence of the divine hypostases through the proportion and assimilation of the members; for thus the Spirit of his mouth, which is to say the Holy Spirit of God, is called [the Spirit of the mouth], the mouth being the Only-begotten. And the Spirit, again, proceeding from him, and being sent not only by the Father, but also by the Son.” The same author, in his second discourse concerning the Incircumscript: “We call the Father the Mind of the Word, the Mind in whom is the Word, with whom is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit being termed the Spirit of the mouth of God; for the Son is the mouth of the Father.” Furthermore, that which says, “He shall receive of mine,” and that which says, “He proceeds from the Father,” things which the Savior utters concerning Himself and the Father regarding the Spirit, the great Epiphanius in divine matters confirms with demonstrative proofs and arguments to bring about the same meaning, as we have shown before.
A 14. Now therefore let us see how he who, regarding the term "to pour out" upon the theology contained in general words, recklessly presumes to refute the identity—not knowing what he asserts—by the words of Scripture, rather makes himself refuted and triumphs over himself from those things which he has closely gathered. Let us then look at the refutation regarding the term "to pour out": "When I pour out," he says, "from my Spirit upon all flesh," he says, "in order to make it proceed, he is saying, if by necessity 'to pour out' and 'to proceed' are the same thing." If, therefore, he were saying "to pour out the Spirit," this would have a plausible argument, even if it were not true. But now, he says "from my Spirit." What could one say in the face of such confidence and freedom of speech, when the writings of the divine Fathers are openly destroyed, and their authors and divine teachers are insulted as if they did not adhere to the truth but wandered far and wide from it? For who does not know that it is the common opinion of the Church that the prophetic saying: "I will pour out of my Spirit," signifies that the Holy Spirit was poured out by the Lord, when at one time he loudly calls out, "he sent him down," and at another, "he poured him out upon the holy disciples and apostles"? And how does the adversary blather: "If therefore he had said, to pour out the Spirit, as if he did not admit that the Paraclete himself is poured out?" I do not know what he is thinking. Where will he place the great heralds, both of them supreme? Of whom the one, the "vessel of election," writing to Titus, proclaims: "God and the Father saved us," he says, "through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior." And the other, the sacred key-bearer of the heavenly kingdom, after he had interpreted the words of the praised prophet—as the divine Luke narrates in the Acts—teaching those who were present at that time, preaches: "Being exalted therefore by the right hand of God"—the God-man Christ, obviously—"having received from the Father the promise regarding the Holy Spirit," which was foretold by Joel the seer, "he poured out this which you see and hear" with abundance; that is, he poured out his gifts and graces, which you, Jews, see under the appearance of fiery tongues and hear through the violent breath. Hence the most divine Cyril, in his Prosphonetic discourse to the most pious empresses regarding the true faith, defines it in this way: "The Son has therefore acted the things of God and the Father, giving the Spirit himself. Human, therefore, is the reception, but befitting God and above man is the pouring out of the gift from his own fullness even into others. And if it is in time that he is received by the apostles and other sign-bearing men from the Lord, it is nonetheless above time to pour him out from his own essence, and for him to exist eternally. Therefore, in the very interpretation of the prophet Joel upon the phrase: 'I will pour out of my Spirit,' the same preacher of sacred things discourses thus: 'For in that he is God, and the Son by nature from God, for he is born of God and Fa- B C D
Father, His own Spirit is also in Him, and from Him, in the same way, indeed, as He is understood to be of God and the Father.' A Not only here does the great man [b] clearly testify that the Son, like the Father, possesses the divine Spirit, by stating 'the Spirit is the Son’s own,' if indeed this is also the Father’s own; and if, as has been said, the explanation of 'own' is altogether clear regarding God, indicating that it is from His essence. Furthermore, when he says, 'the Spirit is from the Son,' but also finally when he adds for the sake of greater clarity, 'just as, indeed, He is understood to be of God and the Father.' And yet, each of these—not only when taken together, but also in individual consideration—manifests the procession. In the meantime, let those who belong to the party of the one explaining it, as was set forth earlier, in the phrase: 'I will pour out of my Spirit' B examine to what it refers, and against whom it rages. Therefore, 'to pour out,' and 'to be poured out,' and 'outpouring,' and 'effusion,' and 'the poured out,' but surely also 'flux,' and 'the flowing,' and 'to flow' do not denote an essential and eternal existence when applied to the divinely sovereign hypostases. And this, the vigilant collector of theological mysteries, while instructing on it, cries out in his discourse on the Nativity: 'When I say God, I mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Deity does not pour out beyond these, lest we introduce a multitude of gods, nor is it circumscribed within these, lest we be condemned for affirming a poverty of the Deity.' For the phrase 'the Deity does not pour out beyond these' demonstrates that the existence is not extended into others apart from the three enumerated persons. Nor, indeed, will anyone dare to conceive the 'flux of the Deity' as a flow of that kind, but will recognize it as a firm and stable efflux therefrom, and an eternal existence defined in three persons—the Father begetting, the Son being begotten, and the Spirit proceeding. C
15. As this also may be considered—contributing not a little, moreover, to the enlightenment of the very words about which the discussion is concerned, for one who frequently brings forward 'that which proceeds' here—if he had applied his mind more attentively to learn which expressions are suitable to these concepts among rhetoricians, and which of them ring false, so that he might be able to use the former where necessary, and refrain from the latter, how much more attention should he have devoted to this as it is observed in theological matters by those who speak of God! For 'that which proceeds' and 'the proceeding one,' as active forms in pronunciation, are not found anywhere in any of those who have shone in doctrine, nor indeed is 'proceder.' D Whence Maximus—who is aptly named for his zeal and wisdom—composing a dialogue between an Anomoean, that is, an Arian, and an Orthodox, says, as if from the Anomoean by way of a question: 'Is there, therefore, no difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?' As from the Orthodox: 'In nature, no; in will, no; but in begetting and being begotten, and in sending forth, and in proceeding.' And from the Anomoean: 'What is to beget or to be begotten, and to send forth, and to proceed?' From the Orthodox: 'In that the Father indeed begets, that is, has begotten, and the
A Son is begotten, that is, has been begotten. And that the Father sends forth the Spirit, and the Spirit proceeds, that is, has proceeded. The great Confessor shows that both are true, and that to use the term "to proceed" is not at all inappropriate, nor does he by any means allow the thought of "to send forth" to be separated from this concept itself. B For since it was necessary to say "to proceed" not once, but twice and thrice in this brief dialogue, he did not utter this, but rather the same concept, and not something else in meaning. And the shepherd of the Neocaesareans, Gregory, who is called after the wonders, confirms that these expressions signify the same thing. For in the discourse whose beginning is, "Most hostile and alien to the apostolic confession are those who speak of the Son as being from non-being," he says thus: "The Father being unbegotten, and the Son having been begotten of the Father, and the Spirit having been eternally sent forth from the essence of the Father through the Son." C As if, in fact, this differed in nothing from "has proceeded," he spoke to express his mind. The other of the same name, the summit of theology, will illustrate the same thing not only by nouns but also by verbs. He writes in his discourse to Heron the philosopher: "The property of the Father is unbegottenness, of the Son, generation, of the Spirit, procession." And in the second of the *Theological Orations* (on peace), he declares: "We think and maintain this, to entrust the knowledge of how these things stand toward one another in relation and order only to the Trinity itself, and to those whom the Trinity, having purified them, may reveal it, whether now or later. But we acknowledge one and the same nature of the Godhead, which is without beginning, and generation, and procession." What is "unbegottenness" there, is "without beginning" in this place, according to the fact that the duality of persons is from the Father; for in an atemporal sense, the three are co-eternal. D And there, as here, generation is declared by the same term. And what "procession" is there, is "progress" here. In other places, this same one, and the rest of the theological Fathers, clearly set forth the same reality with other terms, which we omit for the sake of brevity, since our other discourses treat of these same matters.
16. Next, he puts forward these things regarding the one with whom he holds the dialogue: "Just as if someone were to say that a base is made for the right foot, not adding 'and for the left,' he speaks imperfectly and commits a solecism in meaning, though not in structure; in the same way," they say, "he who says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, without adding 'and from the Son,' speaks imperfectly and errs in meaning." If, therefore, this is the case, the Son of God himself, saying in the Gospels: "When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father," without adding "and from me," speaks imperfectly according to them, and falls into error in meaning. But may such blasphemy be far from us. "Or show," they say, "that it is stated in the divine Scriptures that the Spirit does not proceed also from the Son, or admit—even if forced—the affirmation that He proceeds also from Him." But this is a sophism. For just because one cannot demonstrate from Holy Scripture that the Son does not [beget]
A from the Spirit, one will therefore confess A the affirmation that He is begotten. The reason is that it is one thing not to be, and another not to be said. For just because no one among us has said today that it is not lightning, no one will be forced to grant the affirmation that it is lightning. We, therefore, who speak for the sake of the peace of God’s Church, as God who penetrates the hearts of men knows, speak regarding these arguments, not for the sake of vindicating the one against whom he has brought litigation, but—from the things just said, by which he thinks he protects his own cause—to show that he is repelled by the theological testimonies set forth above, and that he casts blasphemy in vain, and that the swelling vanity arising from his deprecation is exposed. For the divine Cyril in those passages clearly bears witness: "He pours forth and proceeds," he says, "the God-man; the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father," knowing that these three terms have exactly the same meaning, and in no way differ B according to the sense. The same one cries out in a loud voice: "And Christ is the truth, and He pours forth from Him, just as indeed [He does] from the Father." Furthermore, the great Epiphanius, that pillar [B – C] of dogmas, in those same passages confirms the same sentiment with the clearest and most necessary conclusive arguments, just as for the Father [it is said]: "Who proceeds from the Father," so also for the Son [it is said]: "He shall take of mine," as is promised beforehand, which in the same holy Gospel, in the same and one pericope, are placed very close to one another. And where is that objection of the adversary regarding the Lord: "Not adding also that which is 'from me'"? And this man [does] these things, either because he did not deign to run through the commentaries of the divine Fathers at all, as he makes a show of having done, or rather because he preferred to them the wickedness conceived beforehand in his mind. We, on the other hand, have decided to follow the teaching of the God-instructed Epiphanius and Cyril on the decrees handed down by them: "He proceeds from the Father" and "He shall take of mine," rather than those things which they, departing from the path, interpret and define; because we, becoming men of the same persuasion as him, or rather his followers, choose to suffer injury together with the words, hoping that they [the Fathers] may be merciful, as those who know, since they live with God, whence insults arise. And furthermore, [we follow] the peak of theology, who clearly declares, "one ought not to contend over names, provided that the syllables are referred to the same meaning."
17. Then, refuting the argument of the one debating [with him]—that "Since the Spirit does not proceed from the Son, [and since this] is nowhere found, an affirmation will therefore be [valid]"—he opposes this, calling it a sophism. For not because someone cannot show in divine Scripture [C – D] that even the Son is not begotten by the Spirit, will he therefore confess the affirmation that He is begotten. This construction from similars, being for the destruction of a lie, shows that the one who set it forth is saying a sophism, rather than refuting one. For he wishes to establish from it [the premise] that, just as the fact that the Son is not begotten by the Spirit is admitted and stands in need of no proof, and because of this the affirmation that He is begotten D of Him is false; so too that the Spirit does not proceed from [the Son is likewise true].
A Let us look, therefore, at the comparison hereafter: that the Son is begotten of the Father introduces a duality of persons, and of absolute necessity it radiates two distinct properties; the one—to begetting and the generative power—is one [property] of the begetting Father, and the other—to being begotten and the generated [nature]—is another of the generated Son. Whence the fact that the Son is not begotten of the Spirit is an unassailable truth, and the property of the Father, namely, to beget, confirms that there is no need for proof of this. For if it is reserved to Him alone as His own property, how could it be applied to another at all, so that He might beget the Son? Not at all.
But as to the [argument] that "the Spirit does not proceed from the Son," what sort of comparison is this to these things? If "to proceed," as the one extremely punctilious about dogmas says, B or "to send forth"—which the God-illumined Fathers put forward, as was set out just now—or "to produce" and "to causing to proceed" were handed down by them as the property of the Father, as were "generative" and "to beget" in that case, then the similarity of both affirmations would indeed be well taken. But since no one is ever found to have assigned "productive" to the paternal property in any place, and some of them openly use "to send forth" of the Son just as of God the Father, why does he attempt to show that dissonant and utterly incoherent things coalesce, and that things which do not converge do converge?
Furthermore, [concerning the claim that] the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, established as it is by the decree of the universal synod—which holds the seventh number—how will he concede that "to produce" or "to make proceed" has any place? Let us grant, indeed, as the adversary pleases, that it is the property of the Father. For if the Father has anything as His own property, He does not have it through the Son: not the generative power, not the unbegotten nature, not anything else. Therefore, C it would be of great audacity, or of no ordinary ignorance—not to say something worse—to show the negation, "The Spirit does not proceed from the Son," as [following] from those similar to it, [namely,] "The Son is not begotten of the Spirit." And [to argue] that both this and that are true from the affirmation that "the Son is not begotten of the Spirit," and that both this and that negation, "The Spirit does not proceed from the Son," is a lie, whereas the God-illumined interpreters of mysteries decree regarding "proceeds from the Father" and "He shall take of Mine" and regarding the identical and indifferent [nature] of other words, as many as have been spoken.
So, since he has most excellently shown from inappropriate similarities, which lead openly into precipices, the [consequences of] saying "to be" and "not to be," and "the Spirit does not proceed from the Son," D he also assigns reasons for his own remarkable exploit, and continuing his own arguments, he adds: "And the cause is this: for it is one thing not to be, namely, the negation 'does not proceed,' and another thing not to have been said, the affirmation, namely, 'proceeds.' Then the proof follows: 'For neither, because no one among those present has said today that it has not lightened, will anyone be compelled to grant the affirmation, namely, that it lightens.'" Calling a sophism a demonstrated reason, and being himself more enmeshed in this sophistically, as has been refuted, he sophistically in this place
A produces again the affirmation which he said was not stated—even though its negation does not exist, that is, it does not hold—from the fact that it is not necessary today, just because someone has not said "it is not lightning," to confess the affirmation that "it is lightning." But this is the opposite of the handed-down rule of contradiction, which ordains that this should be spoken of the same thing, and according to the same thing, and of the same thing. But this voluminous man has made the knowledge of the affirmation and the negation depend upon indefinite things. This axiom of contradiction, however, knows not at all how to preserve truth and falsehood. Since someone is sick, someone is not sick, someone is healthy, someone is not healthy, there will be no obstacle to both being true simultaneously, or both being false. But when these are taken for the elucidation of the rule, one will result in being, while the other will be discarded into non-being. B Hence, if the Spirit is not from the Son, He does not proceed, as he himself is seen to confess; if this negation is taken as the tradition has it, definitively—for example, "No one among the saints says this"—then, according to him, its affirmation will necessarily exist, not by the captious arguments of sophists, but as proven, in the way it has been handed down. But if he seizes upon the fact that the expression is not used, he will gather for himself folly and ignorance of the divine Fathers, who clearly attribute these things to those who are unwilling to apply their mind to the force and sense of the sayings, but only to the expressions.
18. Nevertheless, in continuation of what has been refuted, he says: "But if anyone says that 'it is not lightning' is not, he necessarily concedes the affirmation." Having given a pretense of saying something about the affirmation, as if he were conscious of his own position, or rather, for some other reason, it appears that, as he proceeds, he wants to further consolidate the negation. For he adds: "But if what they seek be shown in divine Scripture, what else remains for them?" and immediately, "But it must be considered in this way." And thereafter, he puts together the things for the establishment of the work as follows: "The Father is the Father alone, and is not the Son nor the Spirit. The Son is the Son similarly, and is not the Father, nor the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit, and is not the Father himself, nor the Son. The Father, therefore, insofar as He generates the Son, is named Father, but insofar as He causes the Spirit to proceed, He is no longer named Father, but Pro- C ducer. The Father is therefore both Father and Producer. But by one connective name for these, He is called Source, if the great Dionysius is to be believed, thus saying: 'That the Father is the source of Divinity, but the Son and the Spirit are, if one may so express it, deific shoots of the God-generating Divinity, and as it were flowers and superessential lights, we have received from the sacred oracles.' And in another place: 'The Father is the sole source of the superessential Divinity, the Father not being the Son, nor the Son the Father.' If, therefore, the Father is the source of the Divinity, and the Divinity unites the hypostases inconfusedly, then the source of Divinity is the same, just as if it were said, the source of the Son and of the Spirit; and again, the same as the source of the Son and of the Spirit, just as if one says, Father of the Son and Producer of the Spirit. But someone will say, If the Divinity D
A of the hypostases is one, in this way the Father is also called the source of himself. But this is not so. For just as we say the Holy Spirit is from God, and we do not understand that He is also from Himself, because He is also God, so too here we do not understand the Father to be the source of Himself. And here the argument is even more manifest; for a source is called a source because it pours forth something, and the source is altogether called the source of that which is poured forth. If, then, the Father is called the source of the Divinity poured forth from Him—namely, of the Son and of the Spirit—it is evident that He is not the source of Himself. If, therefore, the Father is the source of Divinity and the only source—and it is the same thing to say "source of Divinity" as it is to say "Father and Producer of the Son and Spirit"—then the Father alone is both Father and Producer of the Son and Spirit. But if He alone is so, then the Son is not so, and clearly neither of these is true. And behold, it has been demonstrated by the divine Scripture that the Holy Spirit does not proceed also from the Son." How admirably he concluded what he had set out to do! And nothing, as he said, remains for the explanation of the question at hand, if one relies B upon the truths stated from the beginning, where the Father, in that He begets the Son, is named Father, but in that He produces the Spirit, He is no longer Father but Producer; and by one conjoint name for these, He is called a source: Father, that is, of the Son, and Producer of the Spirit, if the great Dionysius merits belief, writing: "The Father is the fontal Divinity, while the Son and Spirit are shoots of the God-begotten Divinity, planted by God." But those things which he himself passed over—whether of his own accord or because of the frequent neglect of that examination of the Scriptures which we have mentioned and which is demanded by divine precept—shall be added, for they shall obtain confirmation even by the calculation of the great defenders of piety. One of these was the summit of theology, the great Athanasius, in his discourse on the apparition of the incarnate Word of God, the beginning of which is: "Those who maliciously wish to understand the divine Scriptures," and treating the matter theologically, he has this: "For He knows the Son, who exists with God the Father, to be the source of the Holy Spirit." And the golden-voiced nightingale of the Church, in his discourse on the mystery C of baptism, the beginning of which is: "Again the spiritual cithara of the blessed David for us," speaks thus: "For this reason the Savior shows Himself to be the source of life, and the Holy Spirit to be living water." If from these it is manifest that the Son is the source of the Spirit, the conclusion—that miraculous negation, that the Holy Spirit does not proceed also from the Son—is rejected; while the affirmation, shown by us through terms of the same meaning and sense, dispels the disagreement, just as the God-minded ones, supported by the divine mind, confirm not only here but also in many other divine dogmas, in words and in deeds. And by this same man who so concluded, it is asserted in these very words, when he openly declared: "Source, Father; a conjoint name, indicating the Begetter and the Producer in the Son and Spirit."
19. If, therefore, being pushed to this point, they who follow the side of this man, even against their will, D and taking refuge in that alone, should wish to employ sophistry, they—piled up with a new structure of arguments—will assert that dictum
A to exclude the Son; but just as the tome, which has been refuted many times and in many ways, insinuates, supported by lordship and tyranny, what kind of lapse do they not bring upon themselves? The interpreter of unspeakable things and the observer of things unseen called the Father the only fount; and if he spoke with the meaning that these men contend for, how is it that the aforementioned lights of the Church of such magnitude decreed the Son also to be a fount of the Spirit, openly disagreeing with such a man, whose holy discourses and Commentaries the Church of God, according to the tradition of them and of like Fathers, after the apostolic and divine utterances and preaching, holds and venerates; and they show themselves to be opposed not only to such great men, but also manifestly to themselves? For in the second tome of his *Ecclesiastical History*, Theodoret records the letter sent to the Africans concerning the Synod of Ariminum, in which similar contents are found: «For who would wish to agree with the opinion of those who do not even approve of their own institutes? For those who, as we have said above, composed at different times one new formula of faith after another—being more than ten in number—and wrote them down in their councils, openly show that they themselves B censure each one of their councils: and the same thing happens to them as once happened to the treacherous Jews. For just as they, having abandoned the only fount of living water, as the prophet Jeremiah writes, *dug for themselves cisterns, which cannot hold water* (Jerem. II, 13); so these men, having undertaken a fight against the general council, have established many councils for themselves.» Behold, even against himself this great pugnacious and irreconcilable man, if, by calling the Father the only fount of living water—and no one at all hesitates that the living water is the Holy Spirit—he has, in the things we have already set forth, manifested the Son to be the fount of that water. But as for these men who insinuate similar things by their poured-out words, may he who is stirred by true zeal recognize that they oppose themselves and the divine mystagogues, and not those who are illuminated by God and the fellow-zealots who conspire in the same faith; and let him recognize that they—if they be heralds of the Gospel, and disciples, and masters—in the way they know, declare from the person of the Lord to His own Father: «This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God» (Joan. XVII, 5), knowing that the word *only* in no way strips the Son of true deity, but demonstrates the primary and first cause, which the Father has uniquely obtained; for they know by the same reason that, even when the Father is announced as the only fount of C the Spirit, it is not thereby taken away that the Son also is a fount of the Spirit, just as they have been taught that the statement: «Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels who are in heaven, except the Father alone» (Matth. XXVI, 56), is to be understood in no other way than this. But if it were not so, who would have proceeded to such a degree of audacity as to attribute a mark of ignorance to Him who knows all things before they come to be, and furthermore, to attribute a privation of reason to Wisdom itself and to the Word existing by Himself, and to attribute weakness to the power of the omnipotent God, and to Life itself a need for life, because the Lord asserts similar things about Himself, when He thus defines: D
"The word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me," and, "I can do nothing of my own self," and, "I live because of the Father." A Yet He does not deprive Himself by these words, if those utterances of His regarding Himself are applied more closely, when He says: "For whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner," and, "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom He wills," and "He who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me, shall have eternal life." And in another place, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away," but rather He says these things for the sake of the Father’s glory—by which He glorified Him and still glorifies Him—and because of the reference to Him as the first cause. For from Him He possesses everything which He possesses naturally and essentially, as a natural offspring from a natural progenitor, and He has this very being, and that co-eternal and everlasting co-existence which is with Him. Just as therefore the word "alone" here, and the words which follow, do not in any way take away from the hypostasis of the Only-Begotten, as has been demonstrated, but confirm most clearly that it exists in the Son just as it is in the Father, as has been stated, similarly, the most divine Athanasius insinuates in the clearest words that just as the Father is, so the Son is the source of the Spirit, since that term "alone" is aptly and fittingly received concerning the divine hypostases, and in no way takes anything away. B Furthermore, the same incomparable confessor in his first discourse against the Arians provides it as a dogma that "the Savior is the sole giver of the Spirit." And who could have proceeded to such a pitch of audacity and rashness as to assert therefrom that the Father is excluded, and to contend that the Spirit is not given by Him? Nay, who among those who think rightly, would not certainly recognize from this that these [words] do not in the slightest degree introduce a distinction between the divine hypostases? Hence this wise initiate of sacred mysteries, in his dialogues with Arius, shows that the term "alone" insinuates a division of the divine persons.
20. C If anyone should wish to raise the objection, how is the Son the sole giver, since He Himself is not the primary cause—for this is properly reserved for the Father alone? That it does not at all imply a divisive conception of the supersubstantial persons, even if it is not asserted here according to the primary cause, is certain from what we have set forth above. Nevertheless, it can be said according to other and different reasons. For just as when it is asserted that the Father alone knows [the time], every knowledge of created things, whatever it may be, is shaken and reduced to nothing; so when it is asserted that the Son is the sole giver, every other giving of created things ceases. D For those who had been eye-witnesses of the Lord and His disciples, as the history of the Acts of these men recounts, were also givers of the most holy Spirit, yet as ministers and servants of Him, and as pure vessels and habitations. There, however, the giving of both—both of the one giving and of the one given—is of those subsisting in the same nature and essence. Hence it can be understood that the word "alone," even in divine matters, is used for the sake of distinction.
A to be taken for the purpose of distinguishing, namely those things that consist of created essence and are immediately—or so to speak, distinctly—apprehended, and others that are very close to these as signs, and also for the removal and negation of those things that are utterly cast away and alienated from the superessential Deity, as the Evangelist who reclined on the Savior’s breast demonstrates. For when, speaking in the person of the God-man Word to His own Begetter in his own writing of the Gospel, he says, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God," in the end of his first Catholic Epistle he writes thus: "We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know the true God, and that we may be in the true One, in His Son. This is the true God and eternal life." As, therefore, there the "true God the Father" is immediately associated with "only," so here the "true God the Son" is associated with "this" by way of excellence; and as there, again, "eternal life" is immediately associated, so here this B is associated to the very letter. Then he immediately adds: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols," not only saying but testifying. "Keep yourselves from thinking anything about these things, of which those who are deceived by error speak. The Son of the true God, Christ, is the true God. These are false, and are falsely named gods." Therefore, from the words delivered by God in the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles, and their expositors and masters of piety, it is clearly shown how the word "only" is taken to be applied to the Monarchical hypostases, and to distinguish and separate some things, and that the Father is the fount of the Spirit, and that the Son is clearly insinuated to be the fount of the Spirit by the very same words. And these things are gathered from these.
21. Regarding that of which our discourse treats, the pronouncements are clear: "The Father, insofar as He begets the Son, is called Father; but insofar as He causes the Spirit to proceed, C he is no longer called Father, but Producer. The Father, therefore, is both Father and Producer, but he is called by one connective name for these two: Fount." And after some proofs were added for these: "It is the same to be the fount of divinity, just as if you would say fount of the Son and Spirit; and again, fount of the Son and Spirit, just as if you were to say Father of the Son and Producer of the Spirit." But having not paid attention to the fact that the Son is also a fount, he concludes, from this confirmation of the fount according to the sense and from the fact that he understands it to refer only to the Father, that the Father is the only Producer and that [the Spirit] proceeds from the Father alone. Who then, provided he cultivates piety, from the things he himself confesses regarding the meaning of "fount"—which have already been demonstrated—and from those which divine Scripture D loudly testifies to be present in the Son just as in the Father, will not cry out mightily that it is altogether manifest that what he, gathering them together, affirms to be proper to the Father, must necessarily—according to his own same respect—exist in the Son regarding the Spirit, so that
it may be subject to no contradiction and repel denial? A And in addition to these, a few things must be recited from the god-inspired Cyril concerning the fountain. In his sixth book to Hermias, he says: "The Spirit flows forth as from a fountain, the Father." Having treated this, in the seventh book he dogmatizes concerning the Son: "He anoints himself with His own Spirit, which attaches to Him, which He himself sends forth as the Word from God the Father, and pours Him forth to us from His own nature as from a fountain." The author of these conclusions and their compiler, partly as it pleased him and partly as the necessity of the statements compelled him, translating the term "fountain" in various ways in his writings in order to prove that the Spirit is from the Father and not from the Son, further adds these words: "For if a fountain is called a fountain because it pours something forth, then the fountain is necessarily the fountain of that which is poured forth." One must therefore attend to whether this precise treatment does not B also clearly establish that [he comes] from the Son, if, according to the god-wise Cyril, "the Son pours forth the Spirit from His own nature as from a fountain," and he also proclaims that "a fountain is called a fountain because it pours forth, and is called the fountain of that which is poured forth." C And the one of great name—who is also namesake to immortality—in these matters also dances once more around the subject of the Spirit, saying that He pours forth actively, [which is] or "proceeding," as was noted above. However, from this very next argumentation of his—which twists the term "fountain" in various ways, and from which he unwittingly and abundantly strengthens against himself the very thing he appears to be zealously attempting, namely to gather that the Father alone is the producer—it appears, from this very method of his argumentation, how futile his proposition really is: "The Father will be the fountain of the Son and of the Spirit, just as if one were to say 'Father of the Son and producer of the Spirit'." And he frequently parades this as something that can in no way be overturned, concluding from the same premises that the Son also is the producer, being most clearly the fountain of the Spirit. And by his own reckoning, the matter stands thus. But since, when the word "alone" is examined in regard to the fountain wherever it occurs, and how it is considered concerning the hypostases of the Divinity, it has been declared from the utterances of the God-inspired Scripture, it is nowhere to be found: "The Father is the sole producer of the Spirit," because the productive power is not a property of the Father, since the Damascus-born, grace-named, and god-speaking theologian, in the thirteenth chapter of his Theological [Chapters], so explicitly theologizes concerning the Father: D "He himself is the Mind, the abyss of the Word, the begetter of the Word, and through the Word the producer of the revealing Spirit." Hence, the Father is by no means the sole producer of the Spirit, since He is so through the Son. For whatever is uniquely attributed to the Father, as we have said before, is consequently through the Son; and whatever is through the Son, that is not unique. Therefore, since both persons are from the Father according to their different procession—the one having generation as its own, the other procession—and since the Father, from whom they are, possesses the generative and productive power according to the account of the property of each in relation to those who are from Him, one will find that, congruently to the other, the generative power—according to all the voices of the divine speakers which clarify this—is held to be proper to the Father and to Him alone, which
is taken clearly to that very point. But as for "productive," or "producer," or "to produce," or whatever else may be indicated by another inflection of this, it is in no way [to be used] anywhere. Therefore, the vertex of theologians, Gregory, in the sermon on the arrival of the Egyptians, says: "All things that the Father has are the Son’s, one excepted: ingeniture. All things that are the Son’s are also the Spirit’s, one excepted: filiation; and whatever else is said of Him bodily for the sake of my human nature and my salvation." The same author, in the sermon to Heron the Philosopher: "Ingeniture is proper to the Father; generation, to the Son; and the emission (procession), to the Spirit." The same, in the sermon on order in discussions: "The Spirit, having existence from God, concedes to the Father ingeniture, and to the Son generation; but in other things, He is of the same nature, of the same session (throne), and of the same honor." B The same author, in the sermon on the Spirit: "For what of the great things can He not do? And what name of God does He not claim for Himself, one excepted: ingeniture and generation? For it was necessary that the properties remain with the Father and the Son, lest there be confusion in the Deity." C The gracious and grace-filled Damascene, in the eighth of his theological chapters concerning the holy Trinity, says: "But the Son is also the character of the paternal hypostasis, because He is perfect and subsistent in Himself, and like in all things to the Father, one excepted: ingeniture." And again in the same chapter: "Through the Father, the Son and the Spirit have everything that they have; that is to say, because the Father has them, except for ingeniture, generation, and procession. For in these hypostatic properties alone do the three holy hypostases differ from one another, not in essence, but being divided indivisibly by the characteristic mark of their own hypostasis." D The divine Cyril, in one of the chapters of the *Thesaurus*: "Just as a plant offers to the fruit coming forth from it the quality inherent in its own nature to be borne, so the Son is understood to have received from the Father the things that inhere in Him, being all that the Father is, save only for being Father." The same author, in the second volume of his works to Hermias: "We believe the Son to be co-eternal with the Father and possessing everything in equal measure, except for the one thing that He does not beget. For this is fittingly the property of God and Father alone." And again in his sermon on the Trinity: "In the only-begotten Son, equal in all things and like to the Father, the paternity is excepted." And again in other places: "The Son shall remain, deprived of nothing that is in the Father, even if He is not understood as Father." And again in others: "The Son is a partaker of all the natural goods of the Father, if you only take away the being Father." And elsewhere again: "True God from true God, not produced into some spurious and foreign nature, but existing essentially as that which the Father is understood to be, save only for the fact that He is not Father." Since these theological testimonies declare in this way the properties of the three hypostases of the Deity, and most clearly delineate what are peculiar to the Father, [as well as] the differences, by [terms such as] "to Him alone," "besides," "excepted," and other such terms, it could not have happened that they were not indicated in some [passages] at least by these divine
mystagogues, if the property of the Father, as well as [the property of] producing, were known as equivalent to begetting.
22. Therefore, since the arguments of those who speak in opposition to the God-minded Fathers are refuted from every side, we have decided to pass over the subsequent points of what has been set down—points which, we wish to declare and make manifest according to our custom as they are seen to correspond to the divinely-given Scripture—and not to append them to the previous ones A as if they were present, nor to add anything beyond what has been argued and discussed in frequent conversations, since they were not neglected, namely what he [the opponent] adopts as an example whilst proving solely the Father to be the producer. And these things, by which he concludes the Father to be the producer and—albeit inconsiderately—necessarily concludes that this same thing is also [true of] the Son, are manifest. Nevertheless, in demonstrating and refuting those who do not accept [this], he devises a likeness to them: "Just as if someone, while professing God to be the creator of human nature, were thereafter to assert that, together with God, the angels also were creators of man, he would think he was contradicting himself not at all." And indeed, examples wherever they are used, and especially in the business of divinity, are true and known by all to be such that they do not coincide in all respects with that to which they are compared, but [only] in some way and in part; nonetheless, they correspond most aptly to the thing which they portray, and in no way improperly. Here, furthermore, what congruence is there in this similitude with those who assert the Father to be the producer, and who do not accept "alone"—which none of the Saints has uttered? B For by what reasoning, if the producer is through the Son, does he contend to pronounce similar things, [as if one] were to confess God to be the creator of human nature, and then, together with God, were to declare the angels also to be their creators? What fitting analogy is there for these things? Or, to speak more truly, who of the God-glorified Fathers would not be held for nothing by this? Who would not be assailed with insults? First of all, the one himself who declares with a loud voice: "The Producer is the Father through the Word of the manifesting Spirit." Then the great Epiphanius, illustrious in asserting dogmas, teaching that the Spirit is from the same essence of the Father and the Son, and setting forth for the proof of this both evangelical utterances: "Who proceeds from the Father," and "He shall take from mine," to an identical and non-different sense of thought. And the rest of the company of those who speak of God, as many as along with him, by the authority of the divine Scriptures, proclaim the Spirit at length C as being from the essence of the Father and the Son, and as many as dogmatize that He "pours forth" and "proceeds from the Father and the Son," if in any way they agree with the most divine Cyril and do not oppose him—who cries out that the Savior in the Gospels said of the Spirit "is poured forth" and "proceeds" in the place where He pronounced "proceeds," since he understood best that the meaning of these three terms was one and the same, and in no way different. And furthermore, he who most clearly determines: "For we shall not move a dispute with anyone concerning names, so long as the syllables express the same meaning." Likewise, he who declares emphatically: D "The Holy Spirit, just as by nature He is the
A substance of God and the Father, so also is He of the Son by nature, as proceeding ineffably from the Father through the Son." And along with him again, the remainder of the assembly of divine Fathers, as many as expressly teach that there is no difference between those things which are "ex Filio" (from the Son) and those which are "per Filium" (through the Son), and who clearly set forth that the power of the "from" and the "through" is equivalent.
Again, the divine Cyril, thus clarifying the matter in his writings to Palladius, says: "The Spirit is in no way mutable; for if He were subject to change, the reproach would redound upon the divine nature itself. If He is of God and the Father, and moreover also of the Son, He is the Spirit essentially shed forth from both—that is to say, from the Father through the Son." Whoever, therefore, embraces these things and from this compares those who assert that the angels are creators of men together with God—by what reasoning will he not also choose to be insulted along with those who have been declared by God to be pure vessels of the Spirit, and who possess Him as indwelling and speaking through them? But may the imitators of God be merciful; for B they are not from us.
§ 23. Nevertheless, he who has thus elegantly composed these similitudes, and has thus set forth the affairs of creation along with them—"just as angels and men"—and has defined the productive power as an idiom belonging exclusively to the Father from his own origin, what will he say regarding creation in light of what the great-minded Basil says, explaining the matter thus in his work to Amphilochius: "And let no one think that I am saying there are three 'archical' hypostases, or affirming the operation of the Son to be imperfect; for the principle of all things is one, operating through the Son and perfecting in the Spirit"? And again, in the Antigraph of the faith dictated by him: "For we know one unbegotten, and one principle of all things, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Will he reject the doctrine that the Father creates through the Son, and that from Him and through the Son all things came to be, according to the thunderous evangelical proclamation? Because he teaches that there are not three 'archical' hypostases, but that the Father is the one principle of all things, will he [the author] C append creative similitudes concerning the angels to those who give assent to both, as if they were declared by the Great One?
But he [Basil], who is truly the name-bearer of the dogmas of truth, striking down the malice of those who from this point choose to twist and drag in such things, and handing down the reason by which both are to be understood, discourses in this manner at the end of his second book against Eunomius: "That which is said to have been made by the Son has its reference to the first Cause, so that even though we believe all things to have been brought into being through God the Word, we do not deny that God is the cause of all things." And although it were affirmed of the producer alone, the sayings of the Fathers ought to have been examined and investigated, and, as has been said, considered and perceived from them, and not by adducing the cited discourse of the heavenly-minded man, [ought he] to show the divinely-speaking ones to be at war with one another and with themselves, and to overturn their theological and genuine sayings through their own words—all from a failure to observe—and concerning the procession of the Spirit, to set its negation upon
A the Son, which none of them is found to have uttered anywhere, B while they strive to constitute it in a completely groundless manner, and to slander the affirmation which they themselves clearly establish with synonyms and words of equivalent meaning, and to devise inappropriate comparisons against those who say it, and to call it a denial, which clearly, as has been shown, is directed against the inspired speakers.
24. Those who in a base way thus make use of the sayings of those after God must attend to the recently cited saying of the great-named Father, C as to how, in order to theologize the relation of having been produced by the Son back to the first Cause, the Father, he shows—in that he uses "alone" and "one" of Him here and in other of his sayings—that the force of both prepositions is indifferent. For having said concerning the Son, "through God the Word," resuming the discourse he added, showing in all places the equivalent power of "from" and "through" concerning the Son, both in the creation of creatures and in the eternal procession of the Spirit. He provides a proof of this equivalence in the examples supplied in his work to Amphilochius; and in others of his writings, he takes the twofold nature of these prepositions in such a way that, when he speaks of theology, as he says there, he declares the Spirit to be from the Son, and sometimes through the Son. Hence in the third of his *Antirrhetica* against Eunomius he writes: "For what necessity is there, if the Spirit is third in dignity and order, that he must also be third in nature? For the word of piety teaches that he is second in dignity to the Son, as he has his being from him, receives from him, and announces to us, and is wholly attached to that Cause; but that he is third in nature, we have neither been taught by the divine Scriptures, nor can it be logically concluded from what has been said. For just as the Son is second in order to the Father, because he is from him, and in dignity, because the Father is the origin and cause of his being, and because through him is the access and bringing to God and the Father—yet he is in no way second in nature, because the Deity is one in both—so too, evidently, the Holy Spirit, even if he is ranked after the Son in order and dignity, would not reasonably be D considered as of an alien nature." And again, in the place where he says, "Why is the Spirit not also the Son of the Son?": "Because it is not that he is not from God through the Son, but so that the Trinity might not be thought of as an infinite multitude, as is suspected among men." And a little later: "For this reason the Apostle clearly proclaimed the Spirit to be from God, saying, 'We have received the Spirit which is from God,' but made it clear that he appears through the Son, having called him the Spirit of the Son as well as of God, and the mind of Christ, just as also the Spirit of God as that of man." These sayings have been much vexed by the manifold malice of dissension; yet the two former—and the first one more savagely than the second—have been diminished by the removal of their entire members, as well as by additions and insertions.
A But because the books that have been preserved and seen by us even until these times—books which are both a monstrosity, both in that they have been preserved and that they have been seen by us, and which reveal through the antiquity of their entire structure and the writing of their ancient characters the adulteration of those altered by extreme madness—we have set forth the sayings as they appear in the sources from which they were brought forward. If, however, those who wish to strengthen the schism should be able to add to these books—which show them to be such—or to remove them from the midst, because they are scattered in many places, they will in no way be able to overturn, in regard to the integrity of the argument, the sincerity and purity of our conscience in this matter, once we have seen those things. Regarding these corruptions, and other artifices fabricated by those who speak of divine things in various other modes, whoever wishes may learn more extensively from our other commentaries, which treat similar matters at greater length. But now, as for the author of these new conclusions, how does he appear in relation to the words of the great herald Basil, which stand thus? If the mode of existence of the procession can be expounded, this great man, I say, declares it most manifestly concerning the Son, affirming, "The Spirit," he says, "has its being from the Son, and receives and announces it to us from Him." B But this man leads this into fabrications and absurd reasonings, and proves his negation of propositions by things that have no subsistence, relying solely on words. What harmony is there here with the sayings of the blessed one? Rather, it is an outright hostile opposition, and an irreconcilable war. Furthermore, the divine shepherd of the Nyssaeans, speaking nothing different from his own brother, ordains the procession of the Spirit toward being "from the Son and through the Son," and he refutes as a foolish talker the one who introduces similarities from such a theology in regard to created things, and who, by bringing in delineations within the created order, C attempts from thence to fight against those who are clearly heavenly. Hence this same initiate, in the first of his *Antirrhetica* against Eunomius, writes the following: "The Spirit is joined to the Father in that He is uncreated, but again is distinguished from Him in that He is not the Father. But from the conjunction with the Son, in that He is uncreated and possesses the cause of existence from the God of all, He is again separated by the property that He does not have His subsistence from the Father as the only-begotten, and that He appeared through the Son Himself: and again, the Spirit is distinguished from the creation, which subsisted through the Son, by immutability and steadfastness, so that the Spirit would not be thought to have any communion with it because He appeared through the Son." D As his own brother teaches separately "from the Son" and "through the Son," in the same way he does here too; but here, in the construction of one saying, he teaches the Spirit [is] from the Father through the Son, and also [speaks of] the creation, and in the latter part even indicates the difference. Nevertheless, those who idly devise new things, asserting that "appeared" indicates a manifestation and not an existence, are manifestly refuted by the words previously cited from the Fathers, which have been arranged [to show] what is between them.
B Furthermore, [they are refuted] by other things scattered throughout the theological teachings, which clearly have the sense of existence, not manifestation, and [proved] also by the very context of the patristic usage under discussion. For what plausibility does the following reference yield—"again, whereas the creature has its subsistence through the Only-Begotten"—if it is not spoken entirely concerning existence? And how would the Holy Spirit be considered to have some communion with the creature, if the latter did not subsist through the Son? And how was it manifested through the Son, if the manifestation was not towards the Trinity, but towards the creature? How, moreover, is the difference and the ground of distinction not [derived] from there, but rather more readily from the fact that [the creature] has its existence through the Son, whereas He [the Spirit] in no way [does]?
Then, too, from where was it handed down, and without any hesitation, that the Spirit should have existence through the Son, when he was not, and that no such distinction was indicated, and that it was passed over in silence? For if that were obviously the case, these things would necessarily have followed and would have been declared. But the fact that the Spirit possesses Being from the Father through the Son naturally and eternally, while the creature [possesses Being] by way of creation and in time, appropriately and as was fitting, has been spoken [of], and that which distinguishes [them] has been added. C For the [creature] is mutable, as having been changed from non-being to being, and [is] sometimes existing, then [existing] in time, and having the capacity for change and alteration in transmutations towards better or worse. But the Holy Spirit is immutable; for unchangeably and with continuous firmness He was, is, and will be, as He who is essentially and timelessly sent forth from the Father through the Son; [He is] always good, as He who is Goodness itself and the fountain of goodness, and is by nature God, as He is from whom and through whom [all things are]. By immutability and firmness, therefore, He is distinguished from the creature, and not because the latter subsisted through the Son is He considered to have any communion with it. Wherefore, Epiphanius, divinely manifested, says in his *Ancoratus*: "Therefore, the Father was always, and the Spirit was always from the Father and the Son. But all things after the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are created and made; and whereas they existed not at one time, they came into being from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Who will not affirm here, too, that the discourse is universally about existence; and that the divine Spirit is theologicalized as a procession into being from the Father and the Son according to His nature, D while the creature is said to have come into being from the three hypostases of the Godhead, and that those things which are distinguished [are] likewise set forth there? From which it is determined by accurate and true tradition, according to the principle of existence, that the Almighty Spirit is from the Father through the Son, and [equally] the creature, and this [creature] again from the Father in the Spirit through the Son; and again from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Nay, more, the Father is the Begetter of the Son and the Creator of the creature, so that both are affirmed [to be] from the Father, and that which is distinguished [is] in no way distinguished from these, except solely that they are not so according to existence. And the culmination of the confession [is] Athanasius in the exchange in which he expounds Orthodox
A doctrine, saying, “The cause is the nature of God, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and of all creation.” But when we bring into the middle the teacher of divine things, the wise Nyssen, who theologizes that the Spirit proceeds through the Son to existence, just as his own brother has been shown to have determined, and who defines both according to the same intention—as “from the Son and through the Son”—and who presents the word “solely” as being taken with reference to the Father, there being no impediment to both also being proclaimed with fitting concepts regarding both theology and creation, it is necessary now to set forth the same Nyssen, following the consistent sequence, B speaking in a lofty tone, “also from the Son.” Regarding the creation of things, it has been acknowledged from what is proximate, and regarding the divine and super-good Spirit, in the homily on the [Lord’s] Prayer, he theologizes thus: “For the Only-begotten Son is named from the Father by the divine Scripture, and up to this point the discourse sets his property; the Holy Spirit, however, is both said to be from the Father and is testified to be from the Son. For if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he says, this man is not his.”
25. Having examined the words of this passage inquisitively, we now look at them in another way, since in diverse questions the divine utterances of those who speak of God illustrate the truth in a diverse manner. That the Spirit is clearly shown here to be from the Son, and is declared with a resonant voice to be from the Father and from the Son—which the adversary, bellowing, “What is the necessity of saying [this]?” and not revering the theological instructions of the Fathers, is clearly caught doing—is evident. And that for representing the existence C of this from that, no other manner is more original or more apparent is not in doubt. But this must be considered: what does it mean, “Up to this point the discourse sets his property,” after it had been said that “the Son is named from the Father”? It means entirely “up to the point of being from the Father,” and not from another at all. And the “being from the Father” is not [the property] of the Only-begotten, and yet there is no other person. For this must be rejected from the position, and it is a denial of the foundation of the faith. But this is the property: that the Son alone is from the Father alone, and certainly not also from another, or through another. And this is clear from the following continuation: “The Spirit, however, is both said to be from the Father, and is testified to be from the Son.” But how great and what kind of shame does this bring out for those who say—whomever they may be—that the theology which says the Son is named “from the Father” expresses [this] according to existence, and that the Spirit is also said to be from the Father, yet it is not the case that “to be from the Son” is what is testified here, but rather that the property of the person handed down with regard to the giving or manifestation [is transferred] from D the “from one” to the “from both,” and [theirs] from this to that; while they contend that it exists from the dissimilar, not from the similar, from one who according to
A existence is not, even if the mode of both hypostases possesses the dissimilar in this regard.
That the Son is alone from the alone Father, not only by the utterance just cited, but also from another, the God-inspired Nyssen reveals, or rather, the pair who share the same name—both this one and the divine hierarch of Neocaesarea, who claims the name for himself from the performance of miracles—clearly declare B this. For the latter, a divine vision having been led by John, the bosom-friend and Theologian, is initiated into the true faith, with the Mother of God interceding; and he, in his own discourse, while praising the life and deeds of this man, among other things narrates the manner of the revelation and expounds within it the faith as dictated, which is arranged in full in one of our treatises. In it, after it was said concerning the Father: "One God, Father of the living Word, of subsistent wisdom and power," and what follows, the text handles the Son thus: "One Lord, alone from alone, God from God, character and image of the divinity, Word without beginning," and the rest.
But since those who contradict all things create endless trifles and invent novelties—even though the things brought forward are indubitable and above all contradiction—only so that they might appear to be saying something, and with nothing else besides (for at present I pass over in silence the fact that they drive the greater part of their fabrications to their own ruin), perhaps one of them might say: "The Son is alone from the alone Father; for the Spirit is not the Son." But if, when he was discoursing about the Son, he had spoken thus: "One Son," and afterward had subjoined, "alone from the alone," not even by this manner of speaking would his statement have possessed certainty, yet he would still appear to be saying something. But since he says, C "One Lord," and immediately adds "alone from the alone," and "God from God," and with many things interspersed, "true Son of the true Father," where will those fabrications of theirs find a place?
Afterward, one must consider that it is the same divine orator who transmits and narrates the vision and the conversation in which the prayers were received from God; and how could such a great and vehement herald of the truth have proposed to write things contrary to himself, rather than matters concordant with himself? Wherefore, that which is there, "nor does his property extend further"—namely, beyond being from the Father, and neither from another, nor through another—this very thing is made more and more manifest by the induction here: "But the Spirit is also said to be from the Father, and is attested to be from the Son," displaying the invariable concord of both and of himself.
But to assert "the Son is alone from the alone Father, for the Spirit is not the Son," to the end of destroying the difference D handed down by the divine herald—this, that the Spirit is not from both, but that the Son is from one alone, from the alone Father—which is His property [as distinct] from being from both—besides attaching a contradiction to the divine herald, indicates a poverty of reason; if this theology, while handing down the property and, openly teaching that the Spirit is not the Son, also transmits that [He is] from both, and declares [it] through the Son, since both prepositions possess
as has been demonstrated before by the doctrines of the Fathers, equal power; for that God-taught Nyssen, by dogmatizing that the Son [is] from the Only-begotten alone, declared His unigeniture: and whence would filiation accrue to the Spirit? But in the [writings] to Ablabius, where he says: “For this is immediately from the First,” asserting the Son from the Father, that is, directly, as if he said, “Sole from the Sole”; then, “But this through that which is immediately from the First,” he clearly manifested the Spirit through the Son [as] the Unigeniture itself; and furthermore, having articulated it word for word, so that the unigeniture might remain indubitable in the Son, and that it be not doubted that the Spirit is from the Father, with the mediation of the Son preserving the unigeniture for Himself, and not debarring the Spirit from the natural relation towards the Father. B And the most perspicacious Epiphanius, decreeing things consonant with these, and proclaiming very clearly that the Spirit is from both, refutes him who concludes that the Spirit is the Son and gathers other absurdities; for he says in the *Ancoratus*: “Both dwell in the righteous man, Christ and His Spirit.” But if Christ is believed [to be] God from God from the Father, and the Spirit [is] from Christ, or from both, as Christ says: “He who proceeds from the Father,” and, “He shall take of mine.” Then, someone perhaps will say: “Therefore we say there are two sons, and how [is He] the Unigeniture?” But who are you, who reason against God? For if He calls the Son [Him] who is from Him, but the Holy Spirit [Him who is] from both—which things, being understood by the saints only by faith, are luminous, light-bestowing, [and] have a luminous operation. Since then those who are, after God, [our] saviors define and declare it in this way, if according to them the Son alone [is] from the Father alone, if this property is His, if the Spirit is asserted [to be] from both, how [is He] from the Father alone? Not to mention the forged writings that are brought forward to confirm this, and the triumph of the forgers from such a confession.
26. C And again, I turn my speech to the one with whom my discourse is. If the Father is the fountain of the Spirit, if the Son is the fountain of the Spirit, if he brings forward all those things which, as of his own explanations, he concedes to lead to a clear and indubitable demonstration, and whatever [truths] beyond the one sole [Principle] have been comprehended by us, how according to him can the Father alone be the producer of the Spirit? How will the faculty of producing be proper to Him? How does the affirmation D of the procession from the Son, out of those things which he himself says, not subsist, while the negation does subsist? If these things befit the divine Fathers, if they themselves—which is strange—he would consider attentively, he to whom the fear of God is in his heart. Having therefore now discussed these things, and as they stand, as we have argued, with some—though few—of the same things in every respect, and not of another opinion, having been neglected, he composes his speech in this way: “But since they also say this, that the Son of God, referring all things to the Father, for this reason also refers the procession of the Holy Spirit to Him, and so passes over Himself in silence, for what reason did the holy Fathers who published the Creed of the faith, when mention of the procession was induced, wrap it in silence, and dogm[a
explained—if it follows of necessity, according to the Italians, that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son Himself? They surely did not judge that it had to be so, nor were they as daring as these men. For if the Fathers had not taken counsel regarding this, or if they were not partakers of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, or if they had not been gathered canonically, or if they were now stirring up the argument in a partial manner, but rather by the power of the Word and the Spirit, canonically gathered and not partially, then their argument would have had weight. But now, participation in the Spirit and other things are confessed among them, and they were the first to investigate, and they ordained what was discovered with all security. But these men, being otherwise, are inquiring after them, when it is necessary to reject them by all means, and to cling to those men and their words, and not to investigate further until we have partaken of a lesser Spirit and wisdom.
By these things said, the one who utters such things clearly seems to decree that the divine interpreters did not use the Gospel as the foundation of their own sayings, nor were they firmly established in it, since they have handed down very many dogmas—not comprehended in it by the very words—for the sake of explanation and a more diffuse declaration, which is also observed in the rest of holy Scripture. He further suggests that every explanation and solution of doubts is contained in it, and that those things which are passed over in silence in this holy Symbol of the faith must be clarified and proclaimed, and those that are not so are to be rejected. B And in laying down such things as law, he not only exhorts those who reject these things in the immediate and adjacent manner to cling to them and to his own arguments, and makes most of theological doctrine void, nor judges them worthy of reception, but he also decrees that the greater part of the expressions regarding God used by the Church do not subsist, "if," as he says, "mention of the procession having been made in the holy Symbol, the name of the Son was passed over in silence."
But in divine matters, the great Tarasius makes clear mention of this when he holds a discourse concerning the procession, and brings forward the Tome written by himself, saying, "And in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father through the Son, and is recognized to be God," and he confirms it by the universal assembly of divine Fathers, which is the seventh in number. And if in no way C are these words in the holy Symbol… it shines forth, and springs up, and appears, and many other not dissimilar things are found; but the God-inspired mystagogues, when they decree that the Holy Spirit is from the Father and from the Son, and through the Son, proclaim them with a resonant sound, and openly teach that the significance of these is no other than that He "proceeds." And Cyril, inspired by God, in the evangelical and reverend saying, "the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father," cries out, as if he were saying, "He progresses." Thus, characters, and hypostases, and persons—not contained in the saving Gospels nor in the holy Symbol, but received by the universal consent of the Church and thence having their firmness, and demonstrating the Trinity in one essence of divinity—are everywhere sung and preached D in divine canticles and in their sermons.
A And who could ever count up after a like manner the things mirrored in the discourses concerning God? Since, therefore, there are myriads of such things in theology, I, departing from the Patristic utterances regarding matters that are universally known, shall speak but briefly: Why did the most divine Fathers, who first set forth the Symbol of the Faith, pass over in silence the term "Theotokos," if it is altogether necessary for this to be proclaimed and announced? For they were not forgetful of the Mother of God. Why did those who came after them, who finished it with an addition to a better view, likewise pass it over in silence? Furthermore, the two natures in the God-man Word are nowhere read in the holy Symbol, nor the two operations, which a universal B assembly of God-speaking teachers established; nor, again, the two wills in Him, which another universal gathering of the mystagogues of divine things decreed. And whence does that problem of yours derive its consistency: “Because the Fathers did not say it in the Symbol, but passed over it in silence, therefore what they plainly taught is to be rejected”? But if someone were to say that this very thing—that the dogmas mentioned above have been corroborated by synodal decree—procures for them an irrefutable firmness, while "from the Son" or "through the Son" is in no way defined by a synod: first, such a man will be a loud-voiced herald of the vanity of the problem constructed by way of the Symbol; then, the term "Theotokos" will also refute the futility of this, for it is a term that is beyond all dispute; for it is not, as if from the Symbol, set forth by those who first mentioned our most glorious Lady, the Theotokos, as having a synodal decree.
27. C That we may speak, therefore, in summary as to how these things stand in truth: each synod, making it its endeavor to preserve the faith handed down to us from the holy apostles, and to strengthen it, exercised its inquiry only regarding the matters proposed for examination; it rejected those things, the rejection of which was necessary, but it cherished and adopted those whose affection and appropriation were genuine, confirming and securing both according to the apostolic traditions—the rejection of the one, and the preservation of the other; and the venerated and holy Symbol of the first and second synods, being an exposition of the questions that arose in them, contains the true and certain solution and declaration of them, and is a clear and concise proclamation of the apostolic doctrine and confession. D Each of the God-crowned teachers of piety, moreover, not composing their own commentaries outside of the common doctrines, but following them, and explaining privately and at greater length the mysteries of true and blameless theology which are held in common, published them for the common benefit of those who are called by the name of Christ. The Church, therefore, embracing what was handed down synodally by the divine Fathers, no less openly embraces with arms wide-spread those things which each has explained in private treatises, and thus she kindly adapts these to herself; she does not relegate those from herself nor cast them far away, but, just as if they had been brought forth by the Spirit
A and the holy Creed, and whatever was not proclaimed or written in them. Let him therefore who pursues the truth, with an attentive mind and a conscience that is an impartial judge B and arbiter of things, consider this. For this is what we desire, that he for whom these words are poured forth, from the very beginning to the very end of our discourse, should not have brought forward anything selected from the Holy Scriptures which, to those endowed with a divine mind, does not stand in opposition to both words and meaning. And to what end, or for whose sake, is this? So that the schism in the Church of God gathered from the nations—for which Christ shed His own blood—may be strengthened, so that it may remain incompatible; a church the abandonment and distance of which was the cause of countless goods for all Christians, and especially did it bring to our race an expansion of dominion, an increase, and a growth of all good things; and whose departure resulted in almost countless destructions for our nation in particular, and changed the previous happiness into the opposite state, to such a degree that, to those who are not bereft of their right senses, it is judged worthy of tears rather than of narration.
As, therefore, in our treatises C which treat of God, our books and the catalog of our theologians—and after God, our saviors and masters present here and all the others—openly refute this man and all the rest who promote wickedness and dissension, and clearly show forth and most plainly reveal the path of God-pleasing concord and union, so too shall the aforementioned find that our books, and those contained within them relating the events that occurred in our world at certain times and years, from which he will gather, if he should wish to apply his mind considerately, not as we have sketched out just now, both what the time provided us for union, and what the time of division in turn brought upon us.
From these, or rather before all these, and above all, except for those things which are considered among the dogmas—for enough has already been said about these according to our ability—reiterating the discourse on the Church, we say: this one, I mean, which is from the nations, which the Word of God D redeemed with His own blood, and the outpouring of whose saving blood made one, and which the eyewitnesses and ministers and heralds and apostles of the Word, through their venerable preachings and the emptying of their own blood, just as the Master did, having enlarged it, left behind as one; and the varied labors and struggles of the martyrs strengthened its unity unto growth, and the septenary number of the holy ecumenical synods fortified the solidity of this oneness, and whose bond of concord cut down and utterly abolished the tares of heresies that sprang up anew at certain times; and to the now divided state, by taking refuge in these universal councils, the excellent divine shepherds and leaders, and by the gathering from there, having completely cast away the tares, strengthened the word of faith, and ensured that it is bound together and is one. Photius had the power to divide and rend this; and that not out of divine zeal, but because he was sent away by the Roman see, which holds the primacy, and he was deprived of the patriarchal throne
C on that account, whereas by divine right it should be restored to Ignatius, whom our Church has received from its ancestors to place among the saints, and to venerate and glorify. The facts themselves proclaim this, as do the commentaries and writings of our own people. D That he also inconsiderately blurted out pretexts, born of his own mind, concerning dogmas, driven by a lust for domination—of which he could not become master, as his letters to the Roman Church demonstrate, not without threats that if he were not accepted, he would proceed toward schism—is refuted by Maximus, who is of the same name as the confession. This is manifest from his letter to Marinus, a presbyter of Cyprus, which contains these very words: “But in his synodical 1402 A letters, he asserts that the Pope also accepts that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, and he even adds a response regarding this.”
And besides the fact that the dogmatic assertions of Photius are refuted, at the same time they are also refuted by that same zeal for piety which is as great as possible, and which cries out with a mighty voice that the Roman see holds its own privileges in all the universal synods—a thing that is not smoke, B but that, after their conclusion, it proclaims a similar dogma, neither uncertain nor hidden. If divine Maximus flourished before the sixth synod, and that synod was celebrated after his passing to the Lord—for which dogma he contended generously—and after it the final, seventh universal assembly was convened, therefore, as it seems, the assertions of Photius are to be embraced more. And notwithstanding the fact that the matters of these great synods turned out as they did, they are to be revered by those who examine the things of the Pope, C nor do they show zeal for the synodical letters sent by him in such a way, when they were convened both before their celebration and clearly indicate, as has been said, how the custom had obtained from the beginning to send them everywhere, while he continued the new creation of the same according to succession, and up to these times to those subject to him.
But the discernment of truth that shines forth more clearly from these things demonstrates evidently that after the world-saving and fearful D economy, and the apostolic preachings and exertions by which the one Church was established and thus founded, the successors of the disciples of the Lord who followed them, the shepherds and God-appointed mystagogues who, through the so-called seven universal gatherings, established it in this manner, banished every heresy and strengthened the cause of piety within it. As long as these were present, who directed it by works and discourses pleasing to God, the author of wickedness could in no way move the bond of union, nor entirely injure the unity of that Church, although he had attempted it through certain persons—I do not refer to those which the aforementioned letter of the great herald and confessor embraces, but to others besides these as well. Nevertheless, he was quickly cast out, as an examiner of matters knows, since there were those who would cut away the roots of wickedness, and who were guardians and foundations of the peace according to God.
A But when they migrated to eternal goods, then Photius and others who followed him were able to dissolve the bond, and to cut it apart, and to break it into pieces; with what utility or harm? Those who know it understand well, even if those few are not many. Furthermore, we also confess those things which the leaders of our adversaries have admitted in judgment concerning the defense which we mentioned, while they devise new things according to their own custom, mimicking the divine Father; for what could appear clearer than that the saint openly defends what they accused, in the very words placed before them? In some of our discourses, and in that one, we have set forth responses taken from the very words of the defense and other sayings of the Fathers. Concerning that epistle and the necessary sequence of events which we indicated, since we have treated it at length in another place, whoever wishes will find it even more copiously and perfectly in our books and in those of them who think as we do. B However, since we are not permitted to come into conversation, either freely and publicly and in the audience of the emperors, or with some privately and in seclusion, but that lot has fallen to us—that we are consigned to perpetual prisons, and are subjected to all manner of injuries, and it is thought to be a satisfaction to those who excel over us because of the prejudice which is sprinkled among all, and especially in the popular crowd—when it happens unexpectedly that we might speak to some, as once happened by chance in the Great Court, or to receive into our hands writings dictated in secret by some against this argument, C we set forth expressions from the God-inspired Fathers and show them how these [men] respond and speak contrary to them, and into what a precipice they cast themselves thence; and we proclaim the truth radiating from the series of these things, which have been considered and examined, whether at length, or briefly, and in summary. However, these men, surrounded by the greatest authority—whether those who have exchanged life for death and were moved against us to the greatest degree, or those who still live among the living—as if they were caught introducing new words filled with blasphemies in the tome written and published against us and our followers, and when at last they have recognized what was composed with pen and ink, by which they understand that they were refuted in those dialogues held before the judges in the hearing of the entire people, and moreover by the responses handed down in writing by us, they renounce their apologies, whether those which are disputed in the present dialogues between the speakers, or those contained in the writings of others who are not very illustrious or conspicuous in glory and magnificence, but have obtained praise in writing speeches, D and of another [man] who is more illustrious in all logical disciplines and instructions, whose commentaries unexpectedly came into our hands, strengthening the schism of the Church with expressions drawn from the belly: nay, we have even committed to writing, as we were able, the dissertations held by us in the Great Court, moved by zeal for the truth, through which we have been encouraged to do the like for the rest, if anything should appear, trusting in the power that strengthens what was omitted and weak. For we are already truly seized by such great dimness of sight concerning those things omitted, as in those things
FRAGMENT.
A ...had failed, we are ready, trusting in the strength of Him who reinforces our infirmity. For we are truly exhausted by grave and infirm health, and the sharpness of our eyes is so blunted that while we write, we close our eyes, greatly disturbed by their weakness, and cease from our work; and thus we spend the greater part of the day with them closed. Afterwards, lying back, we are unable to raise our body because of the heaviness of our kidneys and the pain; we are also held by infirmity of the feet, since they are quite unable to move themselves. And I do not speak of the immobility of the outer limbs, which we have contracted from our imprisonments, but of that of the inner ones, and the sickness which nature itself produces. And these things have befallen us from old age itself, and from the never-ceasing chains and tribulations, and also from the deprivation of the medicines and remedies and other things which contributed to care—and which were in use when we were passing our full youth—which the wretched body needs, especially if it be inclined toward diseases. Nor does it escape us that those who hear of zeal, boasting more gloriously of their own zeal, will attack us with even more foul taunts; yet, as we have already become accustomed to endure these, we shall endure them no less. We shall do so by considering both the things that we have suffered for our own nation—in the embassies we undertook when we were in the flower of our age—and these present matters, in which we are now occupied with our own inclinations and purposes. B
OF GEORGE METOCHITES
FROM BOOK IV ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
(Combefis. Auctar. nov. tom. II, p. 1017.)
A Relying on the stated corruption, and on the enticements by which they captivate their listeners from there, they have joined this also to the rest... B relying as they do on the aforementioned depravation, and on the enticements by which they catch their listeners, they have added this also to the remaining arguments regarding existence; except for the cause, except for the property of being unbegotten; they call the cause unbegotten. They say unbegotten.
A And choosing only that portion of the whole statement, truly in accordance with the meaning of his name, as the confession of the greatest Maximus, who says in his letter to Marinus, the priest of Cyprus, concerning the Romans: From these things they showed themselves not to make the Son the cause of the Spirit. For they acknowledge one cause of the Son and the Spirit, the Father. And observing in which of these partial points they boast, all those who in this whole passage join forces for the repelling of the schism of the Churches of God; they did not, however, wish to insert it into the tome or booklet. But otherwise, they boast as if advancing against them. Since, therefore, it is not unreasonable for others of our own words to have laid out this entire passage, to inscribe it also here, being as follows in its wording:
B Of the synodical letters of the most holy Pope who is now, the inhabitants of the Queen of Cities did not take note of so many chapters as you have written; but only two: of which the one pertains to theology: that, they say, he stated that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son; the other, however, pertains to the divine Incarnation: that he wrote that the Lord, as a human, was without original sin. And for the first, they brought forward compatible opinions of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria from his holy commentary upon the holy evangelist John; by which they showed that they do not assert the Son to be the cause of the Spirit. For they acknowledge one cause of the Son and the Spirit, namely the Father; of the one, according to generation; of the other, according to procession; but that they might declare that He proceeds through Him, and by this manifest the union of the essence and its unchangeable nature. But for the second, they have absolutely no need of defense. For what dispute is there in this, even if it is thought to be so by those who invent excuses because of their crabbedness? Yet, nevertheless, they have mollified all evil suspicion, saying that they have neither in their mind that sin by which the first Adam is seen to have labored, nor the vicious action and operation which proceeds from it through the body. These things, indeed, they said, for which they had been summoned to trial for no rational cause. But those for whom they C had with good reason brought forward no defense—just as they had not eradicated the error wrongly introduced by them. I besought the Romans, however, according to your admonition, that they might themselves have understood that which was indicated for avoiding the subversions of the adversaries, since he himself, remaining silent about himself, names one Father from whom the Spirit proceeds, the fountain and first cause itself, and as he himself might be called the author and cause absolutely; or as Latin ears more willingly hear, the principle from which the Son had received that very thing, and together with whom he possesses that which is common, on account of the highest conjunction of nature in both. That, by that spirit and that theology which I criticized in my booklet published last year against the modern synodist theologasters, the interpreters of the scholia of Maximus on Dionysius, they might have attended to the phrase and manner of speaking of Maximus, they would not have set up against themselves and the Catholic Church, from that silence so accustomed to the saints, such a strenuous champion, adversary, and enemy, nor would they have increased the camps of the adversaries and schismatics with such a leader, with whom, and because of the same occasion, they might know themselves to be stripped of almost all the protection of the saints, who also themselves speak in the same way. Indeed, the Roman Church itself held the Creed holy and unblemished for many centuries, accepted in that simplicity from the apostles, and afterwards at the Nicene synod, until at length, for a probable known reason, and especially so that it might accommodate our Gallic and Western [brethren], who had thus long ago received the confession of faith explained by it, it consented to that as an addition, under Pope Christopher and Charles, King of the Franks, as the Greeks claim, whose words Baronius reports, and the Greek [texts] exist in the library of the Most Christian King.
A And with respect to translating their own words, I have exhorted the Romans to do so according to your command, for the sake of avoiding the purloinings of those who fall [into error]; yet, because a custom has prevailed to act and to be sent in such a way, I do not know perhaps whether they might be persuaded. Moreover, [there is the difficulty] of not being able to clarify their own mind in another term and language as well as we [can clarify] our own in our own. But it will certainly happen to them, once they have learned by experience of the harm, and the concern regarding these things.
From there, then, it is allowed to the discerning minds to understand the moments of the question moved regarding those locutions in theology concerning "from the Son" and "through the Son"; concerning the cause; concerning "sole," which is the same as "sole cause"; and how from these the consensus of the divine interpreters shines forth, and [how] a mind not at odds [with itself] appears. They indeed, when they show these to be contrary to one another, then struggle most fiercely that the former are destroyed by the latter. And first, let us speak generally: what is the rationale here for those things produced by this blessed man? What is their justification: those who first fanned the schism, and who now have increased it, and increase it daily, such that the thing they have introduced hardly seems to be a schism, but rather a war of words mixed with certain atrocious insults, such as is wont to happen even among kin and brothers, and follows everywhere into communities of works, and even into priestly ones: and it is clear, if anyone should wish to behold [it] with true investigation. What indeed is the plausible cause from those things which we have set forth? After so many struggles and contests for piety, and the migration to God of Maximus, that man of divine sense, the thirtieth year had passed when the sixth ecumenical synod was assembled for the cause of establishing the dogma which he had strenuously defended: and after it, the seventh and last, and this when almost two hundred years had elapsed from the days of that Father, truly greatest by the reckoning of his name, under the empress Irene; [taking place] during the interval, of course, between those two mentioned synods: and while the Roman Church, by a continuous series and succession of pontiffs, according to a custom hitherto and to this day obtaining among them, in those professions which they would issue, would declare their faith and profession just as those residing in Constantinople and everywhere among the nations would write, and just as has been set forth—no contradiction at all appears to have existed: none, which respects the dogma and the doctrine of the faith, no known question, over such a long interval of time, up to the Patriarch Photius. But that his contention, as is clearly evident, arose not from sacred zeal, but from an appetite for domination, D that book which I have composed shows, as do the rest of the things which pertain to this part. Whence, then, is the firm rationale? What is safe in the attack of those who foment the strife of the Churches, except even that Photius's story does not hold even in this way; since those things which he objects as crime, before both those great synods alike, and in the intervening time, and after them, the Romans most clearly proclaimed and professed? And these things, indeed, in general and in summary, are for those who...
put forward the sentiments of the heaven-inspired Maximus as if against us. A
But to the objection that he does not call him cause, and that he says there is one cause, which is thrown forward as if it were unanswerable, we respond in particular to that which is most concerning to them: namely, that they should show that the Holy Spirit is not from the Son, nor through the Son, according to the principle of existence, but only according to His ministration, gift, and manifestation—which is destructive to the Spirit, according to them. Whence they also declare that the term "sole cause" was handed down in the places where it is theologized by the word, in order to forestall the meaning of a different cause, namely, the producer; and "sole source" in order to refute the different mode of the Spirit's existence, by appearing to signify that the procession through the Son, as it is proclaimed in the places where the regulation of the code explicitly distinguishes, is such. And here, in a similar way, is the same agitation: to overturn one thing by means of another, the former by means of the latter. By means of the phrase "one cause," he places in opposition the "from the Son," which the divine mystagogue here, just as it is pronounced among the Romans, asserts is no different from "through the Son." The refutation in those points, therefore, is most appropriate to these. B
Wherefore we say again that, according to that principle which is uniquely defined for the Father, and not at all in the Son, and in which it is not supposed that the being signified and proclaimed is observed in both—that is, that the Son is not called a cause, and that the Father is called the one cause—it shines forth from the theological teaching of the Fathers. Consequently, since all things that exist from the Son, and everything that is mystically taught as being from the Son and through the Son—and even the Holy Spirit himself, who is taught as his own, from Him and through Him—are from the Father as from a root and a first cause, and in no way are they from the Son in such a manner (because he is not a root nor a primary cause, but the Father exists uniquely and separately as this, in whom there exists also the principle of the root, containing the whole of the account of cause as it relates to primacy, so that the Son, who boasts that his own procession exists therefrom, may refer whatever he has there), in accordance with these things, it is fitting and appropriate that the greatest mystagogue, in accordance with the notion of the name, taught that the Son is not to be called a cause. And the rest of the divinely speaking doctors frequently refer this to the Father; not in order to remove or alter the confession that the Holy Spirit is from the Son and through the Son. C For this father, filled with true wisdom, clearly preaches him from both in this place, and clearly defends the Romans, in accordance with the way he sets forth their mind. He also shows clearly that there is no difference between "from the Son" and "through the Son," just as there is none between "to proceed" and "to come forth," if indeed his words are these: "To say 'through the Son' for those things of which he said 'from the Son,' and 'to come forth' for those of which he said 'to proceed'; but," he says, "so that they might signify 'to come forth through him'." In another place also he says: "The Holy Spirit, who from the Father through the Son, who is begotten, proceeds in an ineffable manner." Wherefore there is a proper principle according to which the Son is not a cause, and again another proper one according to which the Spirit is from both, that is, from the Father through the Son; and it is far from a correct understanding to suppose that one D
to destroy one thing by another; and to introduce those who think differently, and what is greater, A [to represent] godly Fathers as being opposed to themselves.
OF THE SAME, FROM BOOK V ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
That the dissension of the Churches did not arise due to doctrine, nor due to the addition.
(In Allatius, *De purgatorio*, p. 668.)To these things, indeed, those who have reached the letter [in question], or who have made the effort to go through it, will set in opposition [the fact] that the one who published the addition in them is seen to criticize it. But anyone who has not passed through such things superficially, but attentively and with total lack of bias, B would understand that he has rejected the addition as it was made in the Creed, not as if it defiled the purity of piety. And let these things, which I have pursued continuously, serve the main scope of my writing: if the aforementioned person, hesitating in the cited letter, asserts that he is at a loss as to how, and for what reason, the commemoration of the name of the Pope has ceased; and he contends that he does not know it. For if, as the scroll of the Cypriot—or more truly, as you might say, the wind [storm] C written by the Cypriot—speaks concerning the addition, calling it the complement of all impiety, and as the others who are now most addicted to him contend, he had inclined toward this opinion, by what reasoning would he have doubted, and said that he was not yet able to grasp the cause of the cutting off of the aforementioned name? And how, again, would he have even more thoroughly recounted word for word, "It is desirable if the divine mystery is rightly performed among them," that is to say, among the Romans, “and is sung and glorified in accordance with the word of truth, in the same way as it is with us"? And again: "For it is good that we, looking toward that which is well-willed, where God or the faith is not in danger, should always incline toward the peaceful and the brotherly." But since some of those who established the schism before us seem to have criticized the addition only in the Creed, but by no means in other particulars, let those who presume to follow them boldly inquire, and they will find him who presided over the archbishopric of Bulgaria, and was renowned in his words, whose name was Theophylact; they will find him having rejected the proclamation of this [addition] only where it is explicitly stated, but in all other writings, in homilies, and in dialogues, permitting it to be proclaimed and preached openly and freely before all. And it is clear that such a man would not have judged thus manifestly, if he had known that the sincerity of theology was being harmed thereby. However, as for him who [speaks of] the proclamation of the addition of Antioch...
although he appears to reprehend it within the divine Creed and to attack the Romans over it, and to bring upon them the charge of falling away from what is reasonable, and to weave together such like things, yet he clearly knows—as he himself affirms in his speech—that neither God nor the faith is in danger as a result of that, and that even with this being proclaimed in such a way, he urges those present here to incline toward peace and brotherly love. And by suppliant words and surpassing exhortations, he strives with all his might to lead the Constantinopolitan toward the good of concord. Hence, he also brings forward as an example that which was being done at that time in the most holy monastery of Studios, being alien to the Church's tradition: namely, that the deacons should gird themselves with a belt; and [he notes] that although many had exerted labor and zeal to correct this, up to those times they had labored in vain. By this example, I say, he contends that it is not at all possible for the Romans to be led away from their inveterate custom—that is, of writing and publicly proclaiming the addition—as if he were saying: "If we cannot correct the customs of those who are subject to us, how shall we be able to turn them away from their own customs?" B Furthermore, he complains grievously about the chartophylax of Constantinople, because he had written in letters given to his own patriarch that long ago the name of the Pope had been erased from the commemoration of the holy and ecumenical sixth synod. And reproaching him as one who, being addicted to Gentile wisdom, was carelessly neglecting ecclesiastical matters, he confirms these things by offering himself as an unexceptionable witness, [stating] that forty-five years ago, in the Queen of Cities, the Roman pontiff was reckoned in the sacred diptychs together with the other patriarchs. Whoever, therefore, possesses the affairs of the great Maximus and revolves them in his mind (for the necessity of [the current] discourse calls us back again to the memory of his words), and now examines in a spirit of consideration the statements of the aforementioned Antiochene, will openly discover in Maximus the defense of the dogma and the reasons for which they—as he C relates—were rashly studying to make accusations at that time. But as for the words of Peter in the epistle to those who had caused the schism—reprehending the addition in the Creed and other things by which the Romans were being imposed upon, and barbarism and mental deficiency being cast at them—[he will see that they] were dictated without doubt as a medicine to be brought to those to whom such things were sent, as if those who were accusing [meant] that neither God nor the faith was being endangered by the addition, but that they were persuading [men] to embrace those things which pertain to concord and not to reject those who were attempting to introduce a preeminent peace and quiet. In the meantime, he will agitationally reflect in his mind upon the interval of time from then until now, and he will understand that D the vain and trifling loquacity leans upon no firm foundation, both of those who confess that the dissension was introduced by the holy sixth synod—and that with its subversion [the custom] was likewise subverted—and of those who say that it was not so, but rather that it was newly devised by Photius and again subverted, and who attribute the addition in the Creed to the Romans, and [who think] that it was renewed for them again as though it had been refreshed, and [who think they] were in turn renewed against the schism that had prevailed; all of which the wise chief pastor of Antioch proves to be empty breath by the times of which he speaks, and by his calling [the custom] the Roman custom.
...to write and to preach in such a way, and the fact that it is not possible A for others to have room for contradiction, given the examples provided to this end, but also the profession of the superlative Maximus, whose custom it was to dictate that one should act and write in this manner. He, therefore, who knows these things as they truly are, would consider: how could anyone say that the schism walks an upright path, in terms of the very preservation of the truth of the matters? How, at all, when there is such credibility in the testimonies, when the gathering of the sixth and the seventh holy ecumenical councils had taken place, with the intervening years in which the addition was written and preached everywhere, according to the authentic proofs of the aforementioned renowned men—the one in profession and remaining holiness, the other in patriarchal and god-loving majesty—and according to B how those things are brought forward more fully in our own writings, both in the enumeration of the years and in the remaining exposition. From which, then, even apart from those things already discussed, he who wishes may clearly perceive that the perversity of the separation was not introduced by reason of dogma or addition, but rather the whole thing arose from worldly causes and accidents: the first, from the ambition of Photius and the consequences following therefrom; the second, which is the one that now prevails, from the incidents in Sicily that stirred the general Maniakes to rebellion, and from the things that, from another side, the Italian Argyrus manipulated deceitfully and with curiosity.
Second fragment from the same book
(Apud Allatium Contra Hottingerum, p. 511.)In the same way, while we endeavor C to demonstrate to those who consider the firmness of the dissension, they grow insolent with rash loquacity in opposing our divine Fathers. For since the pre-celebrated Maximus, worthy of his name, as one who was greatest in zeal for the catholic faith and in profession—he who flourished many years before the sixth council, and having run the athletic course of piety, as even they say, after all the ecumenical councils had been conducted—plainly demonstrates that the Romans preached what was at that time declared in the synodical letters of the Pope, just as it is preached by them today; and he clearly adds his defense of the same, after whose life, ended by martyrdom for the dogma for which he struggled, the aforementioned universal sixth council was assembled, and furthermore the seventh for the restoration of the venerable icons. D
and the time during which the most divine Maximus lived, running down to this irreconcilable schism, fills a space of nearly four hundred years, or—to speak more precisely—it falls only slightly short of that, if indeed it falls short at all. A
FRAGMENT OF GEORGIUS METOCHITA ON THE UNION OF THE CHURCHES
(From Allatius, *Contra Hottinger*, p. 429.)And Photius, since he was not permitted to enjoy B at his own will whatever he coveted with such great license, took it ill and flared up with anger. Nevertheless, he moderated his anger, planning in his mind to provide for his affairs in another way, and lifted up by a better hope: either to induce Nicholas, the Roman high priest, to grant his assent to what he desired by the allure of his words, or, if he did not obtain that, to attempt the second course, namely, an open separation of both nations. Having pondered these things in his mind, he strove with his utmost effort toward the first, although it did not seem easy to bring to a successful conclusion. Thus, having dispatched letters very well suited to persuasion and constructed in various ways to stir and impel the mind—partly by the structure and method of multiform arguments, and partly by those things arising from them which were suspect and threatening dissension—he strove, if he could not persuade, at least to reconcile to himself the president of the apostolic see and bring him to his proposed goals. But he, like a lion roaring against injustice, judged that he was in no way to be tolerated, and indeed decreed that he should be bound with heavier chains. C And not by him alone was this done; Adrian, his successor, showed himself, whether becoming milder or more placable, to be in some way favoring or at least more lenient toward Photius’s deeds. But he, being exasperated more and more vehemently, bound him with stricter chains, by which Photius, falling from those first and better hopes he had entertained, and blazing with fury and wrath, applied himself altogether to the second option. He turned himself entirely to contention, stirred up an irreconcilable war, and a circular letter was composed by him, which, sent off swifter than any arrow or flying bird, D runs through almost the entire world and kindles a universal slaughter, setting the most powerful nations against one another. The cause and the accusations are none other than those which Photius himself had previously recognized in them and which he himself, knowing them, had embraced, and he had championed an indissoluble concord. There are also brought forward, as a true and sincere trumpet and clearly sounding instrument, his other letter which he himself wrote to Nicholas while still baited by the hope of approval, from which it is most clearly learned that whatever custom
for it was quite clear to anyone who wished to learn from this that all the customs of the Romans had been made known to Photius in the encyclical letter and were unexceptionable in a time of peace, and that he would always have cherished and approved of them, had he not been frustrated in the things he desired.
GEORGIUS METOCHITA: TWO HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS ON THE DISSENSION OF THE CHURCHES
(From Allatius, *ibid.*, pp. 453 and 462.)B He did not hesitate; he sent to the pontiff of senior Rome, reporting the whole drama and accusing the injustice of the one who had acted as a tyrant, denouncing what had been usurped in the manner of tyrants, and demanding vengeance from him as well—both because he was next to him who had committed the injury, which was of the Italian race, and because from him he could demand the obedience owed to himself more than from others. Such were the actions of the ruler of the Ausonian empire. C But he who at that time presided over the Roman Church, being slower than was fitting regarding his requests and resorting to delays—I am convinced for certain prior reasons, of the kind that often happen between prelates and such sovereigns, and especially when mutual suspicion of domination exists between those who are separated by many customs and divided by the distance of their locations—inflamed the anger of the emperor, who was asking for help for his own affairs and was being utterly frustrated in the aid he expected without hesitation.
Therefore, the parts of the one body of Christ, the Church, are once again shaken, and the separation of the peoples who claim the name of Christ for themselves is again established. Above all others, Michael, surnamed Cerularius, who then held the patriarchal throne, puts his hand to the work; for a long time he had been laboring to break away from the Pope, so that he might usurp the primacy for himself alone, which was not granted to him as he desired so long as he remained in communion and unity with him, and since he could not bear to be judged by another in any way, considering it intolerable. D There is also a report in circulation that, relying on foolish imaginations, he was led to the crime of wishing to use the red robes, just as he did. But then, bringing to birth what he had conceived in his mind, when the opportunity was at last offered to him to bring the fetus into the light—at the time when the imperial indignation against the Pope arose—he rushed with great force to dissolve the unity of both Churches. Although he had taken the causes and origins of the division from certain purely secular occurrences, he completely severed ecclesiastical matters and drove them to an absolute dissolution; and that synod, as has been said, which had been assembled in the presence of so many prelates, and held the primary place—which Photius did not confirm, substantiate, or strengthen, nor did he remove every stumbling block among them by issuing canonical decrees—that, recalling...
Cerularius, presiding as patriarch and seizing the opportunity, introduced innovations and caused confusion, using neither examination, nor tribunals, nor discussions, nor assemblies, but solely the written mandate of the Emperor. Together with the rest of the bishops who were under him—a small number, to be sure—he erased the name of the Pope A *ipso facto*, thereby contriving the dissension.
Nor does he place any less importance on what happened to the Churches among his primary concerns. Applying his mind to this, and considering that it was not well propagated in any way, he initiates discussions on the matter; he speaks from the pulpit, establishes a judgment, assembles a council of bishops, and puts forward the arguments of the opposing party. He laments these things; he exclaims; he declares that they are neither right nor useful nor profitable. He contends that the erasure of the Pope’s name was done altogether contrary to the canons. And, to express all this in brief, the record drawn up by him, which B recounts each point in detail, is ready at hand—a record which I have read as it is inserted in the volumes, from which both the purpose and the discussions held will appear crystal clear to anyone who wishes to see them.
ORDER OF THE CONTENTS IN THIS VOLUME
JOANNES VECCUS, Patriarch of Constantinople Apologia. 1009 On his books. 1019 Notitia from Fabricius and Harles. Testament. 1027 On the union of the Churches. 15 On the procession of the Holy Spirit. 157 Epistle to Agallianus. 275 Synodal decision. 281 To Theodore, Bishop of Sugdaea, three books. 289 To Constantine, four books. 337 — Oratio II. 595 Against the strictures of Camaterus. 613 Epigraphs or Prescriptions on the sentences of the Holy Fathers. 725 Refutation of the Photian book on the procession of the Holy Spirit, from the Florentine codex. 803 Refutation of the book of George of Cyprus. 865 Fragment on ecclesiastical peace. 928 Epistle to Pope John with profession of faith and recognition of the primacy. 943 Oratio I on his deposition. 949 — Oratio II. 969
CONSTANTINUS MELITENIOTA, Chartophylax of the Great Church On the ecclesiastical union of the Latins and Greeks and on the procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son, Oratio I. 1031 — Oratio II. 1139
GEORGIUS METOCHITA, Deacon of the Great Church Notitia. 1273 Against Maximus Planudes. 1275 Against Manuel Irensis. 1307 Fragment from Book IV on the procession of the Holy Spirit. 1105 — From Book V. 1413 — From the same book. 1417 On the union of the Churches. 1419 Two historical fragments on the discord of the Churches. 1421
END OF VOLUME ONE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE. Paris. — From the Presses of J.-P. MIGNE.